

Book 


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Stephen Blackpool 

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I 

I 


WORKS - 

/ W* ■ ■ / 

OF 

CHARLES DICKENS. 

0 

iSiljerjSi&c oJ&ition. 


Fully illustrated from Designs by Darley , Gilbert , 
Cruikshank, Phiz , etc. 


HARD TIMES FOR THESE TIMES. 


TWO VOLUMES IN ONE. 



/ NEW YORK: 

PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON, 

459 Broome Street. 

1868. 


W 

) 


\ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by 
Hurd and Houghton, 

in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court for the Southern District of 

New York 


V 

RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 


H. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 


HARD TIMES 

VOLUME I. 





€iution. 


HARD TIMES. 

♦ 

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. 
BOOK THE FIRST. 
SOWING. 

CHAPTER 

I. The One Thing Needful 
II. Murdering the Innocents .... 

III. A Loophole 

IV. Mr. Bounderby 

V. The Key-note 

VI. Sleary’s Horsemanship .... 

VII. Mrs. Sparsit 

VIII. Never Wonder 

IX. Sissy’s Progress • 

X. Stephen Blackpool 

XI. No Way out 

XII. The Old Woman 

XIII. Rachael 

XIV. The Great Manufacturer 

XV. Father and Daughter .... 

XVI. Husband and Wife 


PAGE 
• i 

9 

. 17 
24 
. 34 
42 

. 60 
69 
. 77 
87 
. 95 
105 
. 112 
123 
. 130 
140 


VI 


CONTENTS 


BOOK THE SECOND. 

REAPING. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Effects in the Bank 148 

II. Mr. James Harthouse 166 

III. The Whelp 177 

IV. Men and Brothers 184 

V. Men and Masters ........ 194 

VI. Fading away 203 

VII. Gunpowder 219 

VIII. Explosion 236 

IX. Hearing the Last of it 253 

X. Mrs. Sparsit’s Staircase 264 

XI. Lower and Lower 270 

XII. Down 282 

BOOK THE THIRD. 

GARNERING. 

I. Another Thing Needful 288 

II. Very Ridiculous 297 

III. Very Decided 309 

IV. Lost 321 


CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 

V. Found 7 

VI. The Starlight 19 


CONTENTS 


• • 

vn 

CHAPTER PAGE 

VII. Whelp-hunting 32 

VIII. Philosophical 47 

IX. Final 56 


REPRINTED PIECES 


PAGE 

Lying Awake 65 

The Poor Relation’s Story 75 

The Child’s Story 90 

The Schoolboy’s Story 96 

Nobody’s Story 110 

The Ghost of Art 118 

Out of Town 128 

Out of the Season 138 

A Poor Man’s Tale of a Patent 150 

The Noble Savage 158 

A Flight 167 

The Detective Police 181 

Three “Detective” Anecdotes 207 

On Duty with Inspector Field 219 

Down with the Tide 238 

A Walk in a Workhouse 252 

Prince Bull. A Fairy Tale 262 

A plated Article 270 

Our Honorable Friend 283 

Our School 29] 

Our Vestry 30] 

Our Bore 311 

A Monument of French Folly 322 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


« 

HARD TIMES. 

VOL. I. 

1. Stephen Blackpool Frontispiece. 

2. Stephen and Rachael in the Sick-room .... 116 

3. Mr. Harthouse dining at the Bounderbys’ .... 175 

4. Mr. Harthouse and Tom Bounderby in the Garden . 231 


VOL. II. 

5. The Mouth of the Pit 22 

6. Stephen Blackpool recovered from the Old Hell Shaft . 28 

REPRINTED PIECES. 

7. The School-boy’s Story 97 

8. A Poor Man’s Tale of a Patent 151 

9. Detective Story — “The Sofa” 216 


HARD TIMES. 


BOOK THE FIRST. 

SOWING. 

♦ 


CHAPTER I. 


THE ONE THING NEEDFUL 


“Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and 
girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. 
Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You 
can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon 
Facts : nothing else will ever be of any service to them. 
This is the principle on which I bring up my own chil- 
dren, and this is the principle on which I bring up these 
children. Stick to Facts, sir ! ” 

The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a 
school-room, and the speaker’s square forefinger empha- 
sized his observations by underscoring every sentence 
with a line on the schoolmaster’s sleeve. The emphasis 
was helped by the speaker’s square wall of a forehead, 
which had his eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found 
commodious cellarage in two dark caves, overshadowed 
by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s 
mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The empha- 
sis was helped by the speaker’s voice, which was inflexi- 


8 


HARD TIMES. 


ble, dry, and dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by 
the speaker’s hair, which bristled on the skirts of his 
bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the wind from its 
shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the crust of 
a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely warehouse-room 
for the hard facts stored inside. The speaker’s obstinate 
carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders, — 
nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him by the 
throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn 
fact, as it was, — all helped the emphasis. 

“ In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir ; nothing 
but Facts ! ” 

The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown 
person present, all backed a little, and swept with their 
eyes the inclined plane of little vessels then and there 
arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts 
poured into them until they were full to the brim. 


HARD TIMES. 


9 


CHAPTER II. 

MURDERING THE INNOCENTS. 

Thomas Grad grind, sir. t A man of realities. A 

\ j- 

man of facts and calculations. A man who proceeds 
upon the principle that two and two are four, and noth- 
ing over, and who is not to be talked into allowing for 
anything over. Thomas Gradgrind, sir — peremptorily 
Thomas — Thomas Gradgrind. With a rule and a pair 
of scales, and the multiplication table always in his 
pocket, sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of 
human nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to. 
It is a mere question of figures, a case of simple arith- 
metic. You might hope to get some other nonsensical 
belief into the head of George Gradgrind, or Augustus 
Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind (all 
supposititious, non-existent persons), but into the head 
of Thomas Gradgrind — no, sir ! 

In such terms Mr. Gradgrind always mentally intro- 
duced himself, whether to his private circle of acquaint- 
ance, or to the public in general. In such terms, no 
doubt, substituting the words “ boys and girls ” for “ sir,” 
. Thomas Gradgrind now presented Thomas Gradgrind to 
the little pitchers before him, who were to be filled so full 
of facts. 

Indeed, as he eagerly sparkled at them from the cel- 
larage before mentioned, he seemed a kind of cannon 


10 


HARD TIMES. 


loaded to the muzzle with facts, and prepared to blow 
them clean out of the regions of childhood at one dis- 
charge. He seemed a galvanizing apparatus, too, 
charged with a grim mechanical substitute for the 
tender young imaginations that were to be stormed 
away. 

“ Girl number twenty,” said Mr. Gradgrind, squarel) 
pointing with his square forefinger, “ I don’t know that 
girl. Who is that girl ? ” 

“ Sissy Jupe, sir,” explained number twenty, blushing, 
standing up, and courtesying. 

“ Sissy is not a name,” said Mr. Gradgrind. “ Don’t 
call yourself Sissy. Call yourself Cecilia.” 

“It’s father as calls me Sissy, sir,” returned the young 
' girl in a trembling voice, and with another courtesy. 

“ Then he has no business to do it,” said Mr. Grad- 
grind. “ Tell him he mustn’t. Cecilia Jupe. Let me 
see. What is your father ? ” 

“ He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, sir.” 

Mr. Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the objection- 
able calling with his hand. 

“We don’t want to know anything about that, here. 
You mustn’t tell us about that, here. Your father breaks 
horses, don’t he ? ” 

“ If you please, sir, when they can get any to break, 
.they do break horses in the ring, sir.” 

“ You mustn’t tell us about the ring, here. Very well 
then. Describe your father as a horsebreaker. He 
doctors sick horses, I dare say ? ” 

“ Oh yes, sir.” 

“ Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a 
farrier, and horsebreaker. Give me your definition of a 
horse.” 


HARD TIMES. 


11 


(Sissy Jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by this de- 
mand.) 

“ Girl number twenty unable to define a horse ! ” said 
Mr. Gradgrind, for the general behoof of all the little 
pitchers. “ Girl number twenty possessed of no facts, 
in reference to one of the commonest of animals ! Some 
boy’s definition of a horse. Bitzer, yours.” 

The square finger, moving here and there, lighted 
suddenly on Bitzer, perhaps because he chanced to sit in 
the same ray of sunlight which, darting in at one of the 
bare windows of the intensely whitewashed room, irradi- 
ated Sissy. For, the boys and girls sat on the face of 
the inclined plane in two compact bodies, divided up the 
centre by a narrow interval ; and Sissy, being at the cor- 
ner of a row on the sunny side, came in for the begin- 
ning of a sunbeam, of which Bitzer, being at the corner 
of a row on the other side, a few rows in advance, eaught 
the end. But, whereas the girl was so dark-eyed and 
dark-haired, that she seemed to receive a deeper and 
more lustrous color from the sun, when it shone upon 
her, the boy was so light-eyed and light-haired that the 
self-same rays appeared to draw out of him what little 
color he ever possessed. His cold eyes would hardly 
have been eyes, but for the short ends of lashes which, 
by bringing them into immediate contrast with some- 
thing paler than themselves, expressed their form. His 
short-cropped hair might have been a mere continuation 
of the sandy freckles on his forehead and face. His 
skin was so unwholesomely deficient in the natural tinge, 
that he looked as though, if he were cut, he would bleed 
white. 

“Bitzer,” said Thomas Gradgrind. “Your definition 
of a horse.” 


12 


HARD TIMES. 


“ Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely 
twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. 
Sheds coat in the spring ; in marshy countries, sheds 
hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with 
iron. Age known by marks in mouth.” Thus (and 
much more) Bitzer. 

“ Now girl number twenty,” said Mr. Gradgrind. 
“ You know what a horse is.” 

She courtesied again, and would have blushed deeper, 
f she could have blushed deeper than she had blushed 
ill this time. Bitzer, after rapidly blinking at Thomas 
Gradgrind with both eyes at once, and so catching the 
light upon his quivering ends of lashes that they looked 
like the antennas of busy Insects, put his knuckles to his 
freckled forehead, and sat down again. 

The third gentleman now stepped forth. A mighty 
man at cutting and drying, he was ; a government offi- 
cer ; in his way (and in most other people’s too), a pro- 
fessed pugilist ; always in training, always with a system 
to force down the general throat like a bolus, always to 
be heard of at the bar of his little Public-office, ready 
to fight all England. To continue in fistic phraseology, 
he had a genius for coming up to the scratch, wherever 
and whatever it was, and proving himself an ugly cus- 
tomer. He would go in and damage any subject what- 
ever with his right, follow up with his left, stop, exchange, 
counter, bore his opponent (he always fought All Eng- 
land) to the ropes, and fall upon him neatly. He was 
certain to knock the wind out of common-sense, and ren- 
der that unlucky adversary deaf to the call of time. 
And he had it in charge from high authority to bring 
about the great public-office Millennium, when Commis- 
sioners should reign upon earth. 


HARD TIMES. 

“ Very well,” said this gentleman, briskly smiling, And 
folding his arms. “ That’s a horse. Now, let me ask 
you girls and boys, Would you paper a room with repre- 
sentations of horses ? ” 

After a pause, one half of the children cried in chorus, 
“ Yes, sir ! ” Upon which the other half, seeing in the 
gentleman’s face that Yes was wrong, cried out in chorus, 
u No, sir ! ” — as the custom is, in these examinations. 

“ Of course, No. Why wouldn’t you ? ” 

A pause. One corpulent slow boy, with a wheezy 
manner of breathing, ventured the answer, Because he 
wouldn’t paper a room at all, but would paint it. 

“ You must paper it,” said the gentleman, rather 
warmly. 

“ You must paper it,” said Thomas Gradgrind, 
“ whether you like it or not. Don’t tell us you wouldn’t 
paper it. What do you mean, boy ? ” 

“ I’ll explain to you, then,” said the gentleman, after 
another and a dismal pause, “ why you wouldn’t paper a 
room with representations of horses. Do you ever see 
hoises walking up and down the sides of rooms in reality 
— in fact ? Do you ? ” 

“Yes, sir!” from one half. “No, sir!” from the 
other. 

“ Of course no,” said the gentleman, with an indignant 
look at the wrong half. “ Why, then, you are not to see 
anywhere, what you don’t see in fact ; you are not to 
have anywhere, what you don’t have in fact. What is 
called Taste, is only another name for Fact.” 

Thomas Gradgrind nodded his approbation. 

“This is a new principle, a discovery, a great dis- 
covery,” said the gentleman. “ Now, I’ll try you again. 
Suppose you were going to carpet a room. Would you 


14 


HARD TIMES. 


use a carpet having a representation of flowers upon 
it?” 

0 

There being a general conviction by this time that 
“ No, sir ! ” was always the right answer to this gentle- 
man, the chorus of No was very strong. Only a few 
feeble stragglers said Yes ; among them Sissy Jupe. 

“ Girl number twenty,” said the gentleman, smiling in 
the calm strength of knowledge. 

Sissy blushed, and stood up. 

“ So you would carpet your room — or your husband’s 
room, if you were a grown woman, and had a husband — 
with representations of flowers, would you,” said the gen- 
tleman. “ Why would you ? ” 

“If you please, ^ sir, Yam very fond of flowers,” re- 
turned the girl. 

“ And is that why you would put tables and chairs 
upon them, and have people* walking over them wbh 
heavy boots ? ” 

“It wouldn’t hurt them, sir. They wouldn’t cmsh 
and wither, if you please, sir. They would be the pic- 
tures of what was very pretty and pleasant, and I would 
fancy ” — 

‘ Ay, ay, ay ! But you mustn’t fancy,” cried the gen- 
tleman, quite elated by coming so happily to his point 
“ That’s it ! You are never to fancy.” 

“ You are not, Cecilia Jupe,” Thomas Gradgrind sol- 
emnly repeated, “ to do anything of that kind.” 

“ Fact, fact, fact ! ” said the gentleman. And “ Fact 
fact, fact ! ” repeated Thomas Gradgrind. 

“ You are to be in all things regulated and governed,” 
said the gentleman, “ by fact. We hope to have, before 
long, a board of fact, composed of commissioners of fact, 
who will force the people to be a people of fact, and of 


HARD TIMES. 


n 


nothing but fact. You must discard the word Fancy al- 
together. You have nothing to do with it. You are not 
to have, in any object of use or ornament, what would 
be a contradiction in fact. You don’t walk upon flowers 
in fact ; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in 
carpets. You don’t find that foreign birds and butterflies 
come and perch upon your crockery; you cannot be 
permitted to paint foreign birds and butterflies upon your 
crockery. You never meet with quadrupeds going up 
and down walls ; you must not have quadrupeds repre- 
sented upon walls. You must use,” said the gentleman, 
“ for all these purposes, combinations and modifications 
(in primary colors) of mathematical figures which are 
susceptible of proof and demonstration. This is the new 
discovery. This is fact. This is taste.” 

The girl courtesied, and sat down. She was very 
young, and she looked as if she were frightened by the 
matter of fact prospect the world afforded. 

“ Now, if Mr. M’Choakumchild,” said the gentleman, 
“will proceed to give his first lesson here, Mr. Grad- 
grind, I shall be happy, at your request, to observe his 
mode of procedure.” 

Mr. Gradgrind was much obliged. “ Mr. M’Choakum- 
child, we only wait for you.” 

So, Mr. M’Choakumchild began in his best manner. 
He and somd one hundred and forty other schoolmasters 
had been lately turned at the„same time, in the same fac- 
tory, on the same principles, like so many pianoforte legs. 
He had been put through an immense variety of paces, 
and had answered volumes of head-breaking questions. 
Orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody, biography, 
astronomy, geography, and general cosmography, the sci- 
ences of compound proportion, algebra, land-surveying 


16 


HARD TIMES. 


and levelling, vocal music, and drawing from models, 
were all at the ends of his ten chille i fingers. He had 
worked his stony way into Her Majesty’s most Honor- 
able Privy Council’s Schedule B, and had taken the 
bloom off the higher branches of mathematics and phys- 
ical science, French, German, Latin, and Greek. He 
knew all about all the Water Sheds of all the world 
(whatever they are), and all the histories of all the peo- 
ples, and all the names of all the rivers and mountains, 
and all the productions, manners, ar 1 customs of all the 
countries, and all their boundaries d bearings on the 
two and thirty points of the compa >s. Ah, rather over- 
done, M’Choakumchild. If he ha< ;only learnt a little 
less, how infinitely better he might have taught much 
more ! 

He went to work in this preparatory lesson, not unlike 
Morgiana in the Forty Thieves : looking into all the ves- 
sels ranged before him, one after another, to see wnat 
they contained. Say, good M’Choakumchild. When 
from thy boiling store, thou shalt fill each jar brim full 
by and by, dost thou think that thou wilt always kill out- 
right the robber Fancy lurking within — or sometimes 

onlv maim him and distort him ! 

*/ 



HARD TIMES. 


17 


r 


CHAPTER in. 

"a loophole. 

' » 

Mr. GRADORiNr walked homeward from the school, 
in a state of consic able satisfaction. It was his school, 
and he intended h to be a model. He intended every 
child in it to be a model — just as the young Gradgrinds 
were all models. u 

There were five young Gradgrinds, and they were 
models every one. They had been lectured at, from their 
tenderest years; coursed, like little hares. Almost as 
soon as they could ru \ alone, they had been made to run 
to the lecture-room. The first object with which they 
had an association, or of which they had a remembrance, 
was a large black-board with a dry Ogre chalking 
ghastly white figures on it. 

Not that they knew, by name or nature, anything 
about an Ogre. Fact forbid ! I only use the word to 
express a monster ir a lecturing castle, with Heaven 
knows how many hea^s manipulated into one, taking 
childhood captive, and dragging it into gloomy statistical 
dens by the hair. 

No little Gradgrind had ever seen a face in the moon : 
it was up in the moon before it could speak distinctly. 
No little Gradgrind had ever learnt the silly jingle, 
Twinkle, twinkle, little star ; how I wonder what you 

are ! No little Gradgrind had ever known wonder on 

2 


VOL. I. 


18 


HARD TIMES. 


the subject, each little Gradgrind having at five years old 
dissected the Great Bear like a Professor Owen, and 
driven Charles’s Wain like a locomotive engine-driver. 
No little Gradgrind had ever associated a cow in a field 
with that famous cow with the crumpled horn who tossed 
the dog who worried the cat who killed the rat who ate 
the malt, or with that yet more famous cow who swal- 
lowed Tom Thumb: it had never heard of those ce- 
lebrities, and had only been introduced to a cow as a 
graminivorous ruminating quadruped with several stom- 
achs. 

To his matter of fact home, which was called Stone 
Lodge, Mr Gradgrind directed his steps. He had vir- 
tually retired from the wholesale hardware trade before 
he built Stone Lodge, and was now looking about for a 
suitable opportunity of making an arithmetical figure in 
Parliament. Stone Lodge was situated on a moor within 
a mile or two of a great town — called Coketown in the 
present faithful guide-book. 

A very regular feature on the face of the country, 
Stone Lodge was. Not the least disguise toned down 
or shaded off that uncompromising fact in the landscape. 
A great square house, with a heavy portico darkening 
the principal windows, as its master’s heavy brows over- 
shadowed his eyes. A calculated, cast up, balanced, 
and proved house. Six windows on this side of the 
door, six on that side ; a total of twelve in this wing, a 
total of twelve in the other wing ; four-and-twenty car- 
ried over to the back wings. A lawn and garden and 
an infant avenue, all ruled straight like a botanical ac- 
count-book. Gas and ventilation, drainage and water- 
service, all of the primest quality. Iron clamps and 
girders, fireproof from top to bottom ; mechanical lifts 


HARD TIMES. 


19 


for the housemaids, with all their brushes and brooms ; 
everything that heart could desire. 

Everything ? Well, I suppose so. The little Grad- 
grinds had cabinets in various departments of science 
too. They had a little conchological cabinet, and a littl° 
metallurgical cabinet, and a little mineralogical cabinet 
and the specimens were all arranged and labelled, an 
the bits of stone and ore looked as though they might 
have been broken from the parent substances by those 
tremendously hard instruments their own names ; and, 
to paraphrase the idle legend of Peter Piper, who had 
never found his way into their nursery, If the greedy 
little Gradgrinds grasped at more than this, what was it 
for good gracious goodness’ sake, that the greedy little 
Gradgrinds grasped at ! 

Their father walked on in a hopeful and satisfied frame 
of mind. He was an affectionate father, after his man- 
ner ; but he would probably have described himself (if 
he had been put, like Sissy Jupe, upon a definition) as 
“ an eminently practical ” father. He had a particular 
pride in the phrase eminently practical, which was con- 
sidered to have a special application to him. Whatso- 
ever the public meeting held in Coketown, and whatso- 
ever the subject of such meeting, some Coketowner was 
sure to seize the occasion of alluding to his eminently 
practical friend Gradgrind. This always pleased the 
eminently practical friend. He knew it to be his due, 
out his due was acceptable. 

He had reached the neutral ground upon the outskirts 
of the town, which was neither town nor country, and yet 
was either spoiled, when his ears were invaded by the 
sound of music. The clashing and banging band at- 
tached to the horse-riding establishment which had there 


20 


HARD TIMES. 


Bet up its rest in a wooden pavillion, was in full bray. 
A flag, floating from the summit of the temple, proclaimed 
to mankind that it was “ Sleary’s Horse-riding ” which 
claimed their suffrages. Sleary himself, a stout modern 
statue with a money-box at its elbow, in an ecclesiastical 
niche of early Gothic architecture, took the money. 
Miss Josephine Sleary, as some very long and very nar- 
row strips of printed bill announced, was then inaugu- 
rating the entertainments with her graceful equestrian 
Tyrolean flower-act. Among the other pleasing but 
always strictly moral wonders which must be seen to be 
believed, Signor Jupe was that afternoon to “ elucidate 
the diverting accomplishments of his highly trained per- 
forming dog Merrylegs.” He was also to exhibit “ his 
astounding -feat of throwing seventy-five hundred-weight 
in rapid succession backhanded over his head thus form- 
ing a fountain of solid iron in mid-air, a feat never be- 
fore attempted in this or any other country, and which 
having elicited such rapturous plaudits from enthusiastic 
throngs it cannot be withdrawn.” The same Signor 
Jupe was to “enliven the varied performances at fre- 
quent intervals with his chaste Shaksperean quips and 
retorts.” Lastly, he was to wind them up by appearing 
in his favorite character of Mr. William Button, of 
Tooley Street, in “ the highly novel and laughable hippo- 
comedietta of The Tailor’s Journey to Brentford.” 
Thomas Gradgrind took no heed of these trivialities 
of course, but passed on as a practical man ought to pass 
on, either brushing the noisy insects from his thoughts, 
or consigning them to the House of Correction. But, 
the turning of the road took him by the back of the 
booth, and at the back of the booth a number of chil- 
dren were congregated in a number of stealthy atti- 


HARD TIMES. 


21 


tudes, striving to peep in at the hidden glories of the 
place. 

This brought him to a stop. “ Now, to think of these 
vagabonds,” said he, “ attracting the young rabble from a 
model school.” 

A space of stunted grass and dry rubbish being be 
tween him and the young rabble, he took his eye-glass 
out of his waistcoat to look for any child he knew by 
name, and might order off. Phenomenon almost incred- 
ible though distinctly seen, what did he then behold but 
his own metallurgical Louisa peeping with all her might 
through a hole in a deal board, and his own mathemati- 
cal Thomas abasing himself on the ground to catch but a 
hoof of the graceful equestrian Tyrolean flower-act ! 

Dumb with amazement, Mr. Gradgrind crossed to the 
spot where his family was thus disgraced, laid his hand 
upon each erring child, and said : 

“ Louisa ! ! Thomas ! ! ” 

Both rose, red and disconcerted. But, Louisa looked 
at her father with more boldness than Thomas did. In- 
deed, Thomas did not look at him, but gave himself up 
lo be taken home like a machine. 

“ In the name of wonder, idleness, and folly ! ” said 
Mr. Gradgrind, leading each away by a hand ; “ what 
do you do here ? ” 

“Wanted to see what it was like,” returned Louisa, 
shortly. 

“ WLat it was like ? ” 

“ Yes, father.” 

There was an air of jaded sullenness in them both, 
and particularly in the girl : yet, struggling through the 
dissatisfaction of her face, there was a light with nothing 
to rest upon, a fire with nothing to burn, a starved imag- 


22 


HARD TIMES. 


ination keeping life in itself somehow, which brightened 
its expression. Not with the brightness natural to cheer- 
ful youth, but with uncertain, eager, doubtful flashes, 
which had something painful in them, analogous to the 
changes on a blind face groping its way. 

She was a child now, of fifteen or sixteen ; but at no 
distant day would seem to become a woman all at once. 
Her father thought so as he looked at her. She was 
pretty. Would have been self-willed (he thought in his 
eminently practical way), but for her bringing-up. 

“ Thomas, though I have the fact before me, I find it 
difficult to believe that you, with your education and re- 

* t • 

sources, should have brought your sister to a scene like 
this.” 

“ I brought him, father,” said Louisa, quickly. “ I 
asked him to come.” 

“ I am sorry to hear it. I am very sorry indeed to 
hear it. It makes Thomas no better, and it makes you 
worse, Louisa.” 

She looked at her father again, but no tear fell down 
her cheek. 

“ You ! Thomas and you, to whom the circle of the 
sciences is open ; Thomas and you, who may be said to 
be replete with facts ; Thomas and you, who have been 
trained to mathematical exactness ; Thomas and you, 
here ! ” cried Mr. Gradgrind. u In this degraded posi- 
tion ! I am amazed.” 

“ I was tired, father. I have been tired a long time,” 
said Louisa. 

u Tired ? Of what ? ” asked the astonished father. 

“ I don’t know of what — of everything, I think.” 

“ Say not another word,” returned Mr. Gradgrind. 
f( You are childish. I will hear no more.” He did not 


HARD TIMES. 


23 


Bpeak again until they had walked some half a mile in 
silence, when he gravely broke out with : “ What would 
your best friends say, Louisa ? Do you attach no value 
to their good opinion ? What would Mr. Bounderby 
say ? ” 

At the mention of this name his daughter stole a look 
at him, remarkable for its intense and searching charac- 
ter. He saw nothing of it, for before he looked at her, 
she had again cast down her eyes ! 

“What,” he repeated presently, “would Mr. Boun- 
derby say ! ” All the way to Stone Lodge, as with grave 
indignation he led the two delinquents home, he repeated 
at intervals, “ What would Mr. Bounderby say ! ” — as 
if Mr. Bounderby had been Mrs. Grundy. 


24 


A 


HARD TIMES. 


CHAPTER IV. 

MR. BOUNDERBY. 

Not being Mrs. Grundy, who was Mr. Bounderby ? 

Why, Mr. Bounderby was as near being Mr. Grad- 
grind’s bosom friend, as a man perfectly devoid of senti- 
ment can approach that spiritual relationship towards 
another man perfectly devoid of sentiment. So near 
was Mr. Bounderby — or, if the reader should prefer it, 
so far off. 

He was a rich man : banker, merchant, manufacturer, 
and what not. A big, loud man, with a stare, and a me- 
tallic laugh. A man made out of a coarse material, which 
seemed to have been stretched to make so much of him. 
A man with a great puffed head and forehead, swelled 
veins in his temples, and such a strained skin to his face 
that it seemed to hold his eyes open, and lift his eyebrows 
up. A man with a pervading appearance on him of 
being inflated like a balloon, and ready to start. A man 
who could never sufficiently vaunt himself a self-made 
man. A man who was always proclaiming, through that 
brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his old igno- 
rance and his old poverty. A man who was the Bully 
of humility. 

A year or two younger than his eminently practical 
friend, Mr. Bounderby looked older ; his seven or eight 
and forty might have had the seven or eight added to it 


HARD TIMES. 


25 


again, without surprising anybody. He had not much 
hair. One might have fancied he had talked it off ; and 
that what was left, all standing up in disorder, was in 
that condition from being constantly blown about by his 
windy boastfulness. 

In the formal drawing-room of Stone Lodge, standing 
on the hearth-rug, warming himself before the fire, Mr. 
Bounderby delivered some observations to Mrs. Grad- 
grind on the circumstance of its being his birthday.. He 
stood before the fire, partly because it was a cool spring 
afternoon, though the sun shone ; partly because the 
shade of Stone Lodge was always haunted by the ghost 
of damp mortar ; partly because he thus took up a 
commanding position, from which to subdue Mrs. Grad- 
grind. 

“ I hadn’t a shoe to my foot. As to a stocking, I didn’t 
know such a thing by name. I passed the day in a ditch, 
and the night in a pigsty. That’s the way I spent my 
tenth birthday. Not that a ditch was new to me, for I 
was born in a ditch.” 

Mrs. Gradgrind, a little, thin, white, pink-eyed bundle 
of shawls, of surpassing feebleness, mental and bodily; 
who was always taking physic without any effect, and 
who, whenever she showed a symptom of coming to life, 
was invariably stunned by some weighty piece of fact 
tumbling on her ; Mrs. Gradgrind hoped it was a dry 
ditch ? 

“ No ! As wet as a sop. A foot of water in it,” said 
Mr. Bounderby. 

“ Enough to give a baby cold,” Mrs. Gradgrind con- 
sidered. 

“ Cold ? I was born with inflammation of the lungs, 
and of everything else, I believe, that was capable of 


4 26 




HARD TIMES 



inflammation,” returned Mr. Bounderby. “ For years, 
ma’am, I was one of the most miserable little wretches 
ever seen. I was so sickly, that I was always moaning 
and groaning. I was so ragged and dirty, that you 
wouldn’t have touched me with a pair of tongs.” 

Mrs. Gradgrind faintly looked at the tongs, as the 
most appropriate thing her imbecility could think of 


“ How I fought through it, I don’t know,” said Boun- 
derby. “ I was determined, I suppose. I have been a 
determined character in later life, and I suppose I was 
then. Here 1 am, Mrs. Gradgrind, anyhow, and nobody 
to thank for my being here, but myself.” 

Mrs. Gradgrind meekly and weakly hoped that his 
mother — 

“My mother ? Bolted, ma’am ! ” said Bounderby. 

Mrs. Gradgrind, stunned as usual, collapsed and gave 
it up. 

“ My mother left me to my grandmother,” said Boun- 
derby ; “ and, according to the best of my remembrance, 
my grandmother was the wickedest and the worst old 
woman that ever lived. If I got a little pair of shoes by 
any chance, she would take ’em off and sell ’em for 
drink. Why, I have known that grandmother of mine 
lie in her bed and drink her four-teen glasses of liquor 
before breakfast ! ” 

Mrs. Gradgrind, weakly smiling, and giving no othei 
sign of vitality, looked (as she always did) like an indif- 
ferently executed transparency of a small female figure, 
without enough light behind it. 

“ She kept a chandler’s shop,” pursued Bounderby, 
“ and kept me in an egg-box. That was the cot of my 
•nfancy ; an old egg-box. As soon as I was big enough 



V 


HARD TIMES. 


27 


to run away, of course I ran away. Then I became a 
young vagabond ; and instead of one old woman knocking 
me about and starving me, everybody of all ages knocked 
me about and starved me. They were right ; they had 
no business to do anything else. I was a nuisance, an 
incumbrance, and a pest. I know that very well.” 

His pride in having at any time of his life achieved 
such a great social distinction as to be a nuisance, an in- 
cumbrance, and a pest, was only to be satisfied by three 
sonorous repetitions of the boast. 

“ I was to pull through it I suppose, Mrs. Gradgrind. 
Whether I was to do it or not, ma’am, I did it. I pulled 
through it, though nobody threw me out a rope. Vaga- 
bond, errand-boy, vagabond, laborer, porter, clerk, chief 
manager, small partner, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. 
Those are the antecedents, and the culmination. Josiah 
Bounderby of Coketown learnt his letters from the 
outsides of the shops, Mrs. Gradgrind, and was first able 
to tell the time upon a dial-plate, from studying the 
steeple clock of St. Giles’s Church, London, under the 
direction of a drunken cripple, who was a convicted thief, 
and an incorrigible vagrant. Tell Josiah Bounderby of 
Coketown, of your district schools and your model schools, 
and your training schools, and your whole kettle-of-fish of 
schools ; and Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, tells you 
plainly, all right, all correct — he hadn’t such advantages 
— but let us have hard-headed, solid-fisted people — the 
education that made him won’t do for everybody, he knows 
well — such and such his education was, however, and 
you may force him to swallow boiling fat, but you shall 
never force him to suppress the facts of his life.” 

Being heated when he arrived at this climax, Josiah 
Bounderby of Coketown stopped. He stopped just as 


28 


HARD TIMES. 


his eminently practical friend, still accompanied by the 
two young culprits, entered the room. His eminently 
practical friend, on seeing him, stopped also, and gave 
Louisa a reproachful look that plainly said, “ Behold 
your Bounderby ! ” 

“ Well ! ” blustered Mr. Bounderby, “ wliat’s the mat- 
ter ? What is young Thomas in the dumps about ? ” 

He spoke of young Thomas, but he looked at Louisa. 

“We were peeping at the circus,” muttered Louisa 
haughtily, without lifting up her eyes, “ and father caught 
us.” 

“ And Mrs. Gradgrind,” said her husband, in a lofty 
manner, “ I should as soon have expected to find my chil- 
dren reading poetry.” 

“ Dear me,” whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind. “ How can 
you, Louisa and Thomas ! I wonder at you. I declare 
you’re enough to make one regret ever having had a 
family at all. I have a great mind to say I wish I 
hadn’t. Then what would you have done, I should like 
to know.” 

Mr. Gradgrind did not seem favorably impressed by 
these cogent remarks. He frowned impatiently. 

“ As if, with my head in its present throbbing state, 
you couldn’t go and look at the shells and minerals and 
things provided for you, instead of circuses ! ” said Mrs. 
Gradgrind. “ You know, as well as I do, no young peo- 
ple have circus-masters, or keep circuses in cabinets, or 
attend lectures about circuses. What can you possibly 
want to know of circuses then ? I am sure you have 
enough to do, if that’s what you want. With my head 
in its present state, I couldn’t remember the mere names 
of half the facts you have got to attend to.” 

“ That’s the reason ! ” pouted Louisa. 


HARD TIMES. 


29 


“ Don't tell me that’s the reason, because it can be 
nothing of the sort,” said Mrs. Gradgrind. “ Go and be 
somethingological directly.” Mrs. Gradgrind was not a 
scientific character, and usually dismissed her children to 
their studies with this general injunction to choose their 
pursuit. 

In truth, Mrs. Gradgrind’s stock of facts in general 
was wofully defective ; but Mr. Gradgrind in raising her 
to her high matrimonial position, had been influenced by 
two reasons. Firstly, she was most satisfactory as a 
question of figures ; and, secondly, she had “ no non- 
sense ” about her. By nonsense he meant fancy ; and 
truly it is probable she was as free from any alloy 
of that nature, as any human being not arrived at the 
perfection of an absolute idiot, ever was. 

The simple circumstance of being left alone with her 
husband and Mr. Bounderby, was sufficient to stun this 
admirable lady again without collision between herself 
and any other fact. So, she once more died away, and 
nobody minded her. 

“ Bounderby,” said Mr. Gradgrind, drawing a chair to 
the fireside, “ you are always so interested in my young 
people — particularly in Louisa — that I make no apology 
for saying to you, I am very much vexed by this discov- 
ery. I have systematically devoted myself (as you know) 
to the education of the reason of my family. The rea- 
son is (as you know) the only faculty to which education 
hdild be addressed. And yet, Bounderby, it would ap- 
pear from this unexpected circumstance of to-day, though 
in itself a trifling one, as if something had crept into 
Thomas’s and Louisa’s minds which is — or rather, 
which is not — I don’t know that I can express my- 
self better than by saying — which has never been in 


30 


HARD TIMES. 


tended to be developed, and in which their reason has no 
part.” 

“ There certainly is no reason in looking with interest 
at a parcel of vagabonds,” returned Bounderby. “ When 
I was a vagabond myself, nobody looked with any inter- 
est at me ; I know that.” 

“ Then comes the question,” said the eminently practi- 
cal father, with his eyes on the fire, “ in what has this 
vulgar curiosity its rise ? ” 

“ I’ll tell you in what. In idle imagination.” 

“ I hope not,” said the eminently practical ; “ I con- 
fess, however, that the misgiving has crossed me on my 
way home.” 

a In idle imagination, Gradgrind,” repeated Bounder- 
by. “ A very bad thing for anybody, but a cursed bad 
thing for a girl like Louisa. I should ask Mrs. Grad- 
grind’s pardon for strong expressions, but that she knows 
very well I am not a refined character. Whoever ex- 
pects refinement in me will be disappointed. I hadn’t a 
refined bringing-up.” 

“ Whether,” said Mr. Gradgrind, pondering with his 
hands in his pockets, and his cavernous eyes on the fire, 
“ whether any instructor or servant can have suggested 
anything ? Whether Louisa or Thomas can have been 
reading anything ? Whether, in spite of all precautions, 
any idle story-book can have got into the house ? Be- 
cause, in minds that have been practically formed by 
rule and line, from the cradle upwards, this is so curious, 
bo incomprehensible.” 

“ Stop a bit ! ” cried Bounderby, who all this time had 
been standing, as before, on the hearth, bursting at the 
very furniture of the room with explosive humility. 
u You have one of those strollers’ children in the school.” 


HARD TIMES. 


31 


“ Cecilia Jupe, by name,” said Mr. Gradgrind, with 
something of a stricken look at his friend. 

“ Now, stop a bit ! ” cried Bounderby again. “ How 
did she come there ? ” 

a Why, the fact is, I saw the girl myself, for the first 
time, only just now. She specially applied here at the 
house to be admitted, as not regularly belonging to oui 
town, and — yes, you are right, Bounderby, you are 
right.” 

“ Now, stop a bit ! ” cried Bounderby, once more 
“ Louisa saw her when she came ? ” 

“ Louisa certainly did see her, for she mentioned the 
application to me. But Louisa saw her, I have no doubt, 
in Mrs. Gradgrind’s presence.” 

“ Pray, Mrs. Gradgrind,” said Bounderby, u what 
passed ? ” 

“ Oh, my poor health ! ” returned Mrs. Gradgrind. 
“ The girl wanted to come to the school, and Mr. Grad- 
grind wanted girls to come to the school, and Louisa and 
Thomas both said that the girl wanted to come, and that 
Mr. Gradgrind wanted girls to come, and how was it 
possible to contradict them when such was the fact ! ” 

“ Now, I tell you what, Gradgrind ! ” said Mr. Boun- 
derby. “ Turn this girl to the rightabout, and there’s 
an end of it.” 

“ I am much of your opinion.” 

u Do it at once,” said Bounderby, “ has always been 
my motto from a child. When I thought I would run 
away from my egg-box and my grandmother, I did it at 
once. Do you the same. Do this at once ! ” 

“ Are you walking ? ” asked his friend. “ I have the 
father’s address. Perhaps you would not mind walking 
to town with me ? ” 


32 


HARD TIMES. 


"Not the least in the world,” said Mr. Bounderby, 
“ as long as you do it at once ! ” 

So, Mr. Bounderby threw on his hat — he always 
threw it on, as expressing a man who had been far too 
busily employed in making himself, to acquire any fashion 
)f wearing his hat — and with his hands in his pockets, 
auntered out into the hall. “ I never wear gloves,” it 
was his custom to say. “ I didn’t climb up the ladder in 
them . Shouldn’t be so high up, if I had.” 

Being left to saunter in the hall a minute or two while 
Mr. Gradgrind went up-stairs for the address, he opened 
the door of the children’s study and looked into that 
serene floor-clothed apartment, which, notwithstanding its 
bookcases and its cabinets and its variety of learned and 
philosophical appliances, had much of the genial aspect 
of a room devoted to hair-cutting. Louisa languidly 
leaned upon the window looking out, without looking at 
anything, while young Thomas stood sniffing revengefully 
at the fire. Adam Smith and Mai thus, two younger 
Gradgrinds, were out at lecture in custody ; and little 
Jane, after manufacturing a good deal of moist pipe-clay 
on her face with slate-pencil and tears, had fallen asleep 
over vulgar fractions. 

“ It’s all right now, Louisa ; it’s all right, young 
Thomas,” said Mr. Bounderby ; “ you won’t do so any 
more. Ill answer for its being all over with father 
Well, Louisa, that’s worth a kiss, isn’t it ? ” 

“ You can take one, Mr. Bounderby,” returned Louisa, 
when she had coldly paused, and slowly walked across 
the room, and ungraciously raised her cheek towards 
him, with her face turned away. 

“ Always my pet ; a’n’t you, Louisa ? ” said Mr 
Bounderby. “ Good-by, Louisa ! ” 


HARD TIMES. 


33 


He went his way, but she stood on the same spot, 
rubbing the cheek he had kissed, with her handkerchief, 
until it was burning red. She was still doing this, five 
minutes afterwards. 

“ What are you about, Loo ? ” her brother sulkily 
remonstrated. “ You’ll rub a hole in your face.” 

“ You may cut the piece out with your penknife if you 
(ike, Tom. I wouldn’t cry ! ” 



you s 


34 


HARD TIMES. 


CHAPTER V. 

THE KEY-NOTE. 

Coicetown, to which Messrs. Bounderby and Grad- 
grind now walked, was a triumph of fact ; it had no 
greater taint of fancy in it than Mrs. Gradgrind herself. 
Let us strike the key-note, Coketown, before pursuing 
our tune. 

It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have 
been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it ; but as 
matters stood it was a town of unnatural red and black, 
like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of 
machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable 
serpents of smoke trailed themselves forever and ever, 
and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and 
a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast 
piles of building full of windows where there v T as a 
rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the 
piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and 
down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melan- 
‘holy madness. It contained several large streets all 
/ery like one another, and many small streets still more 
like one another, inhabited by people equally like one 
another, who all went in and out at the same hours, 
with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the 
same work, and to whom every day was the same as 


HARD TIMES. 


35 


yesterday and to-morrow, and every year the counterpart 
of the last and the next. 

The attributes of Coketown were in the main insepa 
rable from the work by which it was sustained ; against 
them were to be set off, comforts of life which found their 
way all over the world, and elegances of life which made, 
we will not ask how much of the fine lady, who could 
scarcely bear to hear the place mentioned. The rest of 
its features were voluntary, and they were these. 

You saw nothing in Coketown but what was severely 
workful. If the members of a religious persuasion built 
a chapel there — as the members of eighteen religious 
persuasions had done — they made it a pious warehouse 
of red brick, with sometimes (but this is only in highly 
ornamented examples) a bell in a bird-cage on the top 
of it. The solitary exception was the New Church ; a 
stuccoed edifice with a square steeple over the door, 
terminating in four short pinnacles like florid wooden 
legs. All the public inscriptions in the town were 
painted alike, in severe characters of black and white. 
The jail might have been the infirmary, the infirmary 
might have been the jail, the town-hall might have been 
either, or both, or anything else, for anything that 
appeared to the contrary in the graces of their construc- 
tion. Fact, fact, fact, everywhere in the material aspect 
of the town ; fact, fact, fact, everywhere in the imma- 
terial. The M’Choakumchild school was all fact, and the 
chool of design was all fact, and the relations between 
master and man were all fact, and everything was fact 
between the lying-in hospital and the cemetery, and what 
you couldn’t state in figures, or show to be purchasable 
in the cheapest market and salable in the dearest, was 
not, and never should be, world without end, Amen. 


36 


HARD TIMES. 


A town so sacred to fact, and so triumphant in its 
assertion, of course got on well ? Why no, not quite 
well. No ? Dear me ! 

No. Coketown did not come out of its own furnaces, 
in all respects like gold that had stood the fire. First 
the perplexing mystery of the place was, Who belonged 
to the eighteen denominations ? Because, whoever did 
the laboring people did not. It was very strange to walk 
through the streets on a Sunday morning, and note how 
few of them the barbarous jangling of bells that was 
driving the sick and nervous mad, called away from their 
own quarter, from their own close rooms, from the corners 
of their own streets, where they lounged listlessly, gazing 
at all the church and chapel-going, as at a thing with which 
they had no manner of concern. Nor was it merely the 
stranger who noticed this, because there was a native 
organization in Coketown itself, whose members were to 
be heard of in the House of Commons every session, indig- 
nantly petitioning for acts of parliament that should make 
these people religious by main force. Then came the Tee- 
total Society, who complained that these same people would 
get drunk, and showed in tabular statements that they 
did get drunk, and proved at tea-parties that no induce- 
ment, human or Divine (except a medal), would induce 
them to forego their custom of getting drunk. Then 
came the chemist and druggist, with other tabular state- 
ments, showing that when they didn’t get drunk,, they 
took opium. Then came the experienced chaplain of the 
jail, with more tabular statements, outdoing all the pre- 
vious tabular statements, and showing that the same 
people ivoidd resort to low haunts, hidden from the 
public eye, where they heard low singing and saw low 
dancing, and mayhap joined in it ; and where A B, aged 


HARD TIMES. 


37 


l 

twenty-four next birthday, and committed for eighteen 
months’ solitary, had himself said (not that he had ever 
shown himself particularly worthy of belief) his ruin 
began, as he was perfectly sure and confident that other- 
wise he would have been a tip-top moral specimen. Then 
came Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby, the two gem 
tlemen at this present moment walking through Coke- 
town, and both eminently practical, who could, on 
occasion, furnish more tabular statements derived from 
their own personal experience, and illustrated by cases 
they had known and seen, from which it clearly appeared . 
— in short, it w r as the only clear thing in the case — that 
these same people were a bad lot altogether, gentlemen ; 
that do what you would for them they were never thank- 
ful for it, gentlemen ; that they were restless, gentlemen ; 
that they never knew w r hat they wanted ; that they lived 
upon the best, and bought fresh butter ; and insisted on 
Mocha coffee, and rejected all but prime parts of meat, 
and yet were eternally dissatisfied and unmanageable 
In short it was the moral of the old nursery fable, — 

There was an old woman, and what do you think? 

She lived upon nothing but victuals and drink: 

Victuals and drink were the whole of her diet, 

And yet this old woman would never be quiet. 

Is it possible, I wonder, that there was any analogy 
between the case of the Coketown population and th 
case of the little Gradgrinds ? Surely, none of us ir 
our sober senses and acquainted with figures, are to b 
told at this time of day, that one of the foremost ele 
rnents in the existence of the Coketown working-people 
had been for scores of years deliberately set at nought ? 
That there was any Fancy in them demanding to be 


38 


HARD TIMES. 


brought into healthy existence instead of struggling on 
in convulsions ? That exactly in the ratio as they 
worked long and monotonously, the craving grew within 
them for some physical relief — some relaxation, encour- 
aging good humor and good spirits, and giving them a 
vent — some recognized holiday, though it were but fix 
an honest dance to a stirring band of music — some occa 
sional light pie in which even M’Choakumchild had no 
finger — which craving must and would be satisfied 
aright, or must and would inevitably go wrong, until the 
laws of the Creation were repealed ? 

“ This man lives at Pod’s End, and I don’t quite know 
Pod’s End,” said Mr. Gradgrind. “Which is it, Boun- 
derby ? ” 

Mr. Bounderby knew it was somewhere down town, 
but knew no more respecting it. So they stopped for a 
moment, looking about. 

Almost as they did so, there came running round the 
corner of the street at a quick pace and with a fright- 
ened look, a girl whom Mr. Gradgrind recognized. 
“ Halloa ! ” said he. “ Stop ! Where are you going ? 
Stop ! ” Girl number twenty stopped then, palpitating, 
and made him a courtesy. 

“ Why are you tearing about the streets,” said Mr. 
Gradgrind, u in this improper manner ? ” 

“ I was — I was run after, sir,” the girl panted, “ and 
I wanted to get away.” 

“ Run after ? ” repeated Mr. Gradgrind. “ Who woul 
run after you. ? ” 

The question was unexpectedly and suddenly answered 
for her, by the colorless boy, Bitzer, who came round the 
corner with such blind speed and so little anticipating a 
stoppage on the pavement, that he brought himself up 


HARD TIMES. 


39 


against Mr. Gradgrind’s waistcoat and rebounded into 
the road. 

“ What do you mean, boy ? ” said Mr. Gradgrind 
iC What are you doing ? How dare you dash against — 
everybody — in this manner ? ” 

Bitzer picked up his cap, which the concussion had 
knocked off ; and backing, and knuckling his forehead 
pleaded that it was an accident. 

“ Was this boy running after you, Jupe?” asked Mr 
Gradgrind. 

“ Yes sir,” said the girl reluctantly. 

“ No, I wasn’t, sir ! ” cried Bitzer. “ Not till she run 
away from me. But the horse-riders never mind what 
they say, sir ; they’re famous for it. You know the 
horse-riders are famous for never minding what they 
say,” addressing Sissy. “ It’s as well known in the town 
as — please, sir, as the multiplication table isn’t known 
to the horse-riders.” Bitzer tried Mr. Bounderby with 
this. 

“ He frightened me so,” said the girl, “ with his cruel 
faces ! ” 

“ Oh ! ” cried Bitzer. “ Oh ! A’n’t you one of the 
rest ! A’n’t you a horse-rider ! I never looked at her, 
sir. I asked her if she would know how to define a 
horse to-morrow, and offered to tell her again, and she 
ran away, and I ran after her, sir, that she might know 
how to answer when she was asked. You wouldn’t have 
hought of saying such mischief if you hadn’t been a 
dorse-rider ! ” 

“ Her calling seems to be pretty well known among 
’em,” observed Mr. Bounderby. “You’d have had the 
whole school peeping in a row, in a week.” 

“ Truly, I think so,” returned his friend. “ Bitzer, 


40 


HARD TIMES. 


turn you about and take yourself home. Jupe, stay here 
a moment. Let me hear of your running in this man- 
ner any more, boy, and you will hear of me through the 
master of the school. You understand what I mean. 
Go along.” 

The boy stopped in his rapid blinking, knuckled hi 
forehead again, glanced at Sissy, turned about, and re 
treated. 

“ Now, girl,” said Mr. Gradgrind, u take this gentle- 
man and me to your father’s ; we are going there. What 
have you got in that bottle you are carrying ? ” 

“ Gin,” said Mr. Bounderby. 

“ Dear, no sir ! It’s the nine oils.” 

“ The what ? ” cried Mr. Bounderby. 

“ The nine oils, sir. To rub father with.” Then, 
said Mr. Bounderby, with a loud, short laugh, “ what the 
devil do you rub your father with nine oils for ? ” 

“ It’s what our people always use, sir, when they get 
any hurts in the ring,” replied the girl, looking over her 
shoulder, to assure herself that her pursuer was gone. 
“ They bruise themselves very bad sometimes.” 

“ Serve ’em right,” said Mr. Bounderby, “ for being 
idle.” She glanced up at his face, with mingled aston- 
ishment and dread. 

u By George ! ” said Mr. Bounderby, u when I was 
four or five years younger than you, I had worse bruises 
upon me than ten oils, twenty oils, forty oils, would have 
rubbed off. I didn’t get ’em by posture-making, but by 
being banged about. There was no rope-dancing for me ; 
I danced on the bare ground and was larruped with the 
rope.” 

Mr. Gradgrind, though hard enough, was by no means 
so rough a man as Mr. Bounderby. Ilis character was 


HARD TIMES. 


not unkind, all things considered ; it might have b 
very kind one indeed, if he had only made some rom 
mistake in the arithmetic that balanced it, years ago. 
He said, in what he meant for a reassuring tone, as the} 
turned down a narrow road, “ And this is Pod’s End ; i 
it, Jupe ? ” 

“ This is it, sir, and — if you wouldn’t mind, sir — 
this is the house.” 

She stopped, at twilight, at the door of a mean little 
public house, with dim red lights in it. As haggard and 
as shabby, as if, for want of custom, it had itself taken to 
drinking, and had gone the way all drunkards go, and 
was very near the end of it. 

“ It’s only crossing the bar, sir, and up the stairs, if you 
wouldn’t mind, and waiting there for a moment till I get 
a candle. If you should hear a dog, sir, it’s only Merry- 
legs, and he only barks.” 

“ Merrylegs and nine oils, eh ! ” said Mr. Bounderby, 
entering last with his metallic laugh. “ Pretty well this* 
for a self-made man ! ” 


HARD TIMES. 


CHAPTER VI 
sleary’s horsemanship. 

The name of the public house was the Pegasus’s 
Arms. The Pegasus’s legs might have been more to the 
purpose ; but, underneath the winged horse upon the 
sign-board, the Pegasus’s Arms was inscribed in Roman 
letters. Beneath that inscription again, in a flowing scroll, 
the painter had touched off the lines : 

Good malt makes good beer, 

Walk in, and they’ll draw it here; 

Good wine makes good brandy, 

Give us a call, and you’ll find it handy. 

Framed and glazed upon the wall behind the dingy 
little bar, was another Pegasus — a theatrical one — 
with real gauze let in for his wings, golden stars stuck on 
all over him, and his ethereal harness made of red silk. 

As it had grown too dusky without to see the sign, 
and as it had grown light enough within to see the pic- 
ture, Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby received no 
offence from these idealities. They followed the girl uj 
some steep corner-stairs without meeting any one, an 
stopped in the dark while she went on for a candle. 
They expected every moment to hear Merrylegs give 
tongue, but the highly trained performing dog had not 
barked when the girl and the candle appeared together. 

“ Father is not in our room, sir,” she said, with a face 


HARD TIMES. 


43 


af great surprise. “ If you wouldn’t mind walking in, 
I’ll find him directly.” 

They walked in ; and Sissy, having set two chairs for 
them, sped away with a quick light step. It was a mean, 
shabbily furnished room, with a bed in it. The white 
nightcap, embellished with two peacock’s feathers and 
pigtail bolt upright, in which Signor Jupe had that very 
afternoon enlivened the varied performances with his 
chaste Shaksperian quips and retorts, hung upon a nail ; 
but no other portion of his wardrobe, or other token of 
himself or his pursuits, was to be seen anywhere. As to 
Merry legs, that respectable ancestor of the highly trained 
animal who went aboard the ark, might have been acci- 
dentally shut out of it, for any sign of a dog that was 
manifest to eye or ear in the Pegasus’s Arms. 

They heard the doors of rooms above, opening and 
shutting as Sissy went from one to another in quest of 
her father ; and presently they heard voices expressing 
surprise. She came bounding down again in a great 
hurry, opened a battered and mangy old hair trunk, 
found it empty, and looked round with her hands clasped 
and her face full of terror. 

“ Father must have gone down to the Booth, sir. I 
don’t know why he should go there, but he must be there ; 
I’ll bring him in a minute ! ” She was gone directly, 
without her bonnet ; with her long, dark, childish hair 
treaming behind her. 

“ What does she mean ! ” said Mr. Gradgrind. “ Back 
n a minute ? It’s more than a mile off.” 

Before Mr. Bounderby could reply, a young man ap- 
peared at the door, and introducing himself with the 
words, “ By your leaves, gentlemen ! ” walked in with 
his hands in his pockets. His face, close-shaven, thin, 


44 


HARD TIMES. 


and sallow, was shaded by a great quantity of dark hair, 
brushed into a roll all round his head, and parted up the 
centre. His legs were very robust, but shorter than legs 
of good # proportions should have been. His chest and 
back were as much too broad, as his legs were too short. 
He was dressed in a Newmarket coat and tight-fitting 
trousers ; wore a shawl round his neck ; smelt of lamp* 
oil, straw, orange-peel, horses’ provender, and sawdust ; 
and looked a most remarkable sort of Centaur, com- 
pounded of the stable and the play-house. Where the 
one began, and the other ended, nobody could have told 
with any precision. This gentleman was mentioned in 
the bills of the day as Mr. E. W. B. Childers, so justly 
celebrated for his daring vaulting act as the Wild Hunts- 
man of the North American Prairies ; in 'which popular 
performance, a diminutive boy with an old face, who now 
accompanied him, assisted as his infant son : being car- 
ried upside down over his father’s shoulder, by one foot, 
and held by the crown of his head, heels upwards, in the 
palm of his father’s hand, according to the violent pater- 
nal manner in which wild huntsmen, may be observed to 
fondle their offspring. Made up with curls, wreaths, 
wings, white bismuth, and carmine, this hopeful young 
person soared into so pleasing a Cupid as to constitute 
the chief delight of the maternal part of the spectators 
but in private, where his characteristics were a precocious 
•utaway coat and an extremely gruff voice, he became of 
he Turf, turfy. 

“ By your leaves, gentlemen,” said Mr. E. W. B 
Childers, glancing round the room. “ It was you, I be- 
lieve, that were wishing to see Jupe ? ” . 

“ It was,” said Mr. Gradgrind. u His daughter 
has o*one to fetch him, but 'I can’t wait ; therefore, if 


HARD TIMES. 


45 


you please, I will leave a message for him with 
you.” 

“ You see, my friend,” Mr. Bounderby put in, “ we 
are the kind of people who know the value of time, and 
you are the kind of people who don’t know the value of 
time.” 

“ I have not,” retorted Mr. Childers, after surveying 
him from head to foot, “ the honor of knowing you ; — 
but if you mean that you can make more money of your 
time than I can of mine, I should judge from your ap- 
pearance, that you are about right.” 

“ And when you have made it, you can keep it too, I 
should think,” said Cupid. 

“ Kidderminster, stow that ! ” said Mr. Childers. 
(Master Kidderminster was Cupid’s mortal name.) 

“ What does he come here cheeking us for, then ? ” 
cried Master Kidderminster, showing a very irascible 
temperament. “ If you want to cheek us, pay your 
ochre at the doors and take it out.” 

“ Kidderminster,” said Mr. Childers, raising his voice, 
“ stow that ! — Sir,” to Mr. Gradgrind, “ I was addressing 
myself to you. You may or you may not be aware 
(for perhaps you have not been much in the audience), 
that Jupe has missed his tip very often, lately.” 

“ Has — what has he missed ? ” asked Mr. Gradgrind, 
glancing at the pDtent Bounderby for assistance. 

“ Missed his tip.” 

“ Offered at the Garters four times last night, an. 
never done ’em once,” said Master Kidderminster. 
“ Missed his tip at the banners, too, and was loose in his 
ponging.” 

“ Didn’t do what he ought to do. Was short in his 
leaps and bad in his tumbling,” Mr. Childers interpreted. 


46 


HARD TIMES. 


u Oh ! ” said Mr. Gradgrind, “ that is tip, is it ? ” 

“ In a general way that’s missing his tip,” Mr. E. W 
B. Childers answered. 

“ Nine oils, Merry legs, missing tips, garters, banners, 
and Ponging, eh ! ” ejaculated Bounderby, with his laugh 
>f laughs. “ Queer sort of company, too, for a man who 
cas raised himself.” 

“ Lower yourself, then,” retorted Cupid. “ 0 Lord ! 
if you’ve raised yourself so high as all that comes to, let 
yourself down a bit.” 

“ This is a very obtrusive lad ! ” said Mr. Gradgrind, 
turning, and knitting his brows on him. 

“ We’d have had a young gentleman to meet you, if 
we had known you were coming,” retorted Master Kid- 
derminster, nothing abashed. “ It’s a pity you don’t 
have a bespeak, being so particular. You ’re on the Tight- 
Jeff, ain’t you.” 

“ What does this unmannerly boy mean,” asked Mr. 
Gradgrind, eying him in a sort of desperation, “ by 
Tight-Jeff?” 

“ There ! Get out, get out ! ” said Mr. Childers, 
thrusting his young friend from the room, rather in the 
prairie manner. “ Tight-Jeff or Slack- Jeff, it don’t much 
signify : it’s only tight-rope and slack-rope. You were 
going to give me a message for Jupe ? ” 

“ Yes, I was.” 

“ Then,” continued Mr. Childers, quickly, “ my opinion 
s, he will never receive it. Do you know much of 
nim ? ” 

“ I never saw the man in my life.” 

“ I doubt if you ever will see him now. It’s pretty 
plain to me, lie’s off.” 

“ Do you mean that he has deserted his daughter?” 


HARD TIMES. 


47 


“ Ay ! I mean,” said Mr. Childers, with a nod, “ that 
he has cut. He was goosed last night, he was goosed the 
light before last, he was goosed to-daj^. He has lately 
got in the way of being always goosed, and he can’ 
stand it.” 

“ Why has he been — so very much — • Goosed ? 
asked Mr. Gradgrind, forcing the word out of himself 
with great solemnity and reluctance. 

“ His joints are turning stiff, and he is getting used 
up,” said Childers. “ He has his points as a Cackler 
still, but he can’t get a living out of them” 

66 A Cackler ! ” Bounderby repeated. “ Here we go 
again ! ” 

“ A speaker, if the gentleman likes it better,” said Mr. 
E. W. B. Childers, superciliously throwing the interpre- 
tation over his shoulder, and accompanying it with a 
shake of his long hair — which all shook at once. 
“ Now, it’s a remarkable fact, sir, that it cut that man 
deeper, to know that his daughter knew of his being 
goosed, than to go through with it.” 

“ Good ! ” interrupted Mr. Bounderby. “ This is good, 
Gradgrind ! A man so fond of his daughter, that he 
runs away from her ! This is devilish good ! Ha ! ha ! 
Now, I’ll tell you what, young man. I haven’t always 
occupied my present station of life. I know what these 
things are. You may be astonished to hear it, but my 
mother ran away from me” 

E. W. B. Childers replied pointedly, that he was not 
at all astonished to hear it. 

“ Very well,” said Bounderby. “I was born in a 
ditch, and my mother ran away from me. Do I excuse 
her for it ? No. Have I ever excused her for it ? Not 
I. What do I call her for it ? I call her probabl y the 


48 


HARD TIMES. 


very worst woman that ever lived in the world, except 
my drunken grandmother. There’s no family pride 
about me, there’s no imaginative sentimental humbug 
about me. I call a spade a spade ; and I call the mother 
of Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, without any fear or 
any favor, what I should call her if she had been th 
mother of Dick Jones of Wapping. So, with this man. 
He is a runaway rogue and a vagabond, that’s what he 
is, m English.” 

“ It’s all the same to me what he is or what he is not, 
whether in English or whether in French,” retorted Mr. 
E. W. B. Childers, facing about. “ I am telling your 
friend what’s the fact ; if you don’t like to hear it, you 
can avail yourself of the open air. You give it mouth 
enough, you do ; but give it mouth in your own build- 
ing at least,” remonstrated E. W. B. with stern irony. 
“ Don’t give it mouth in this building, till you’re called 
upon. You have got some building of your own, I dare 
say, now ? ” 

“ Perhaps so,” replied Mr. Bounderby, rattling his 
money and laughing. 

“ Then give it mouth in your own building, will you, 
if you please ? ” said Childers. “ Because this isn’t a 
strong building, and too much of you might bring it 
bwn ! ” 

Eying Mr. Bounderby from head to foot again, he 
urned from him, as from a man finally disposed of, to 
Jr. Gradgrind. 

“ Jupe sent his daughter out on an errand not an hour 
go, and then was seen to slip out himself, with his hat 
ovei his eyes and a bundle tied up in a handkerchief 
under his arm. She will never believe it of him, but he 
has cut away and left her.” 


HARD TIMES. 


49 


“ Pray,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “ why will she never 
relieve it of him ? ” 

“ Because those two were one. Because they were 
never asunder. Because, up to this time, he seemed tc 
dote upon her,” said Childers, taking a step or two t< 
look into the empty trunk. Both Mr. Childers and Mas 
ter Kidderminster walked in a curious manner ; with tlieii 
legs wider apart than the general run of men, and witl 
a very knowing assumption of being stiff in the knees 
This walk was common to all the male members of 
Sleary’s company, and was understood to express, that 
» they were always on horseback. 

“ Poor Sissy ! He had better have apprenticed her,” 
said Childers, giving his hair another shake, as he looked 
up from the empty box. “ Now, he leaves her without 
anything to take to.” 

“ It is creditable to you, who have never been appren- 
ticed, to express that opinion,” returned Mr. Gradgrind, 
approvingly. 

“ I never apprenticed ? I was apprenticed when I 
was seven year old.” 

“ Oh ! Indeed ? ” said Mr. Gradgrind, rather resent- 
fully, as having been defrauded of his good opinion. “ I 
was not aware of its being the custom to apprentice 
young persons to — ” 

“ Idleness,” Mr. Bounderby put in with a loud laugh. 
u No, by the Lord Harry ! Nor I ! ” 

“ Her father always had it in his head,” resumed 
Childers, feigning unconsciousness of Mr. Bounderby’s 
existence, “ that she was to be taught the deuce-and-ail 
of education. How it got into his head, I can’t say ; I 
can only say that it never got out. He has been picking 
up a bit of reading for her, here — and a bit of writing 

4 


VOL. I. 


50 


HARD TIMES. 


for her, there — and a bit of ciphering for her, some- 
where else — these seven years.” 

Mr. E. W. B. Childers took one of his hands out of 
his pockets, stroked his face and chin, and looked, with a 
good deal of doubt and a little hope, at Mr. Gradgrind 
From the first he had sought to conciliate that gentle 
man, for the sake of the deserted girl. 

“ When Sissy got into the school here,” he pursued, 
“ her father was as pleased as Punch. I couldn’t alto- 
gether make out why, myself, as we were not stationary 
here, being but comers and goers anywhere. I suppose, 
however, he had this move in his mind — he was always 
half-cracked — and then considered her provided for. If 
you should happen to have looked in to-night, for the 
purpose of telling him that you were going to do her 
any little service,” said Mr. Childers, stroking his face 
again, and repeating his look, “ it would be very 
fortunate and well-timed ; very fortunate and ’well- 
timed.” 

“ On the contrary,” returned Mr. Gradgrind. “ I came 
to tell him that her connections made her not an object 
for the school, and that she must not attend any more. 
Still, if her father really has left her, without any con- 
nivance on her part — Bounderby, let me have a word 
with *you.” 

Upon this, Mr. Childers politely betook himself, with 
his equestrian walk, to the landing outside the door, and 
there stood stroking his face and softly whistling. While 
thus engaged, he overheard such phrases in Mr. Boun- 
derby’s voice as “No. I say no. I advise you not. I 
say by no means.” While, from Mr. Gradgrind, he 
heard in his much lower tone the words, “ But even 
as an example to Louisa, of what this pursuit which 


HARD TIMES. ' 51 

has been the subject of a vulgar curiosity, leads to and 
ends in. Think of it, Bounderby, in that point of 
view.” 

Meanwhile, the various members of Sleary’s company 
gradually gathered together from the upper regions 
where they were quartered, and, from standing about 
talking in low voices to one another and to Mr. Childers, 
gradually insinuated themselves and him into the room. 
There were two or three handsome young women among 
them, with their two or three husbands, and their two or 
three mothers, and their eight or nine little children, who 
did the fairy business when required. The father of one 
of the families was in the habit of balancing the father 
of another of the families on the top of a great pole 
the father of a third family often made a pyramid of 
both those fathers, with Master Kidderminster for the 
apex, and himself for the base ; all the fathers could 
dance upon rolling casks, stand upon bottles, catch knives 
and balls, twirl hand-basins, ride upon anything, jump 
over everything, and stick at nothing. All the mothers 
could (and did) dance, upon the slack wire and the tight 
rope, and perform rapid acts on bare-backed steeds ; none 
of them were at all particular in respect of showing their 
legs ; and one of them, alone in a Greek chariot, drove 
six in hand into every town they came to. They all 
assumed to be mighty rakish and knowing, they were 
not very tidy in their private dresses, they were not at 
all orderly in their domestic arrangements, and the com 
bined literature of the whole company would have pro- 
duced but a poor letter on any subject. Yet there was 
a remarkable gentleness and childishness about these 
people, a special inaptitude for any kind of sharp prac- 
tice, an/ an untiring readiness to help and pity one 


52 


HARD TIMES. 


another, deserving, often of as much respect, and always 
of as much generous construction, as the every-day vir- 
tues of any class of people in the world. 

Last of all appeared Mr. Sleary : a stout man as 
already mentioned, with one fixed eye and one loose 
eye, a voice (if it can be called so) like the efforts of a 
broken old pair of bellows, a dabby surface, and a mud- 
dled head which was never sober and never drunk. 

“ Tliquire ! ” said Mr. Sleary, who was troubled with 
asthma, and whose breath came far too thick and heavy 
for the letter s , “ Your thervant ! Tliith ith a bad piethe 
of bithnith, thith ith. YYu’ve heard of my Clown and 
hith dog being thuppothed to have morrithed ? ” 

He addressed Mr. Gradgrind, who answered “ Yes.” 
“Well Thquire,” he returned, taking off his hat and 
rubbing the lining with his pocket-handkerchief, which 
he kept inside for the purpose. “ Ith it your intenthion 
to do anything for the poor girl, Thquire ? ” 

“ I shall have something to propose to her when she 
comes back,” said Mr. Gradgrind. 

“ Glad to hear it, Thquire. Not that I want to get 
rid of the child, any more than I want to thtand in her 
way. I’m willing to take her prentith, though at her age 
ith late. My voithe ith a little hutliky, Thquire, and 
not eathy heard by them ath don’t know me ; but if 
you’d been chilled and heated, heated and chilled, 
hilled and heated in the ring when you wath young, 
ith often ath I have been, your voithe wouldn’t have 
lathted out, Thquire, no more than mine.” 

“ I dare say not,” said Mr. Gradgrind. 

“ What thall it be, Thquire, while you wait ? Thall 
it be Tlierry ? Give it a name, Thquire ! ” said Mr 
Sleary, with hospitable ease. 


HARD TIMES. 


53 


“ Nothing for me, I thank you,” said Mr. Gradgrind. 

“ Don’t thay nothing, Thquire. What doth your friend 
thay ? If you haven’t took your feed yet, have a glath 
of bitterth.” 

Here his daughter Josephine — a pretty fair-haired girl 
of eighteen, who had been tied on a horse at two year 
old, and had made a will at twelve, which she always car 
ried about with her, expressive of her dying desire to be 
drawn to the grave by the two piebald ponies — cried 
“ F ather, hush ! she has come back ! ” Then came Sissy 
Jupe, running into the room as she had run out of it. 
And when she saw them all assembled, and saw their 
looks, and saw no father there, she broke into a most de- 
plorable cry, and took refuge on the bosom of the most 
accomplished tiglit-rope lady (herself in the family- way), 
who knelt down on the floor to nurse her, and to weep 
over her. 

“ Ith an infernal thame, upon my thoul it ith,” said 
Sleary. 

“ 0 my dear father, my good kind father, where are 
you gone? You are gone to try to do me some good, I 
know ! You are gone away for my sake, I am sure. 
And how miserable and helpless you will be without me, 
poor, poor father, until you come back ! ” It was so 
pathetic to hear her saying many things of this kind, 
with her face turned upward, and her arms stretched out 
as if she were trying to stop his departing shadow ant 
embrace it, that no one spoke a word until Mr. Bounder 
by ( growing impatient) took the case in hand. 

u Now, good people all,” said he, “ this is wanton waste 
of time. Let the girl understand the fact. Let her take 
it from me, if you like, who have been run away from, 
myself. Here, wh t’s your name! Your father has ab- 


54 


HARD TIMES. 


sconded — desei ted you — and you mustn’t expect to see 
him again as long as you live.” 

They cared so little for plain Fact, these people, and 
were in that advanced state of degeneracy on the sub 
ject, that instead of being impressed by the speaker’ 
strong common sense, they took it in extraordinary dud 
geon. The men muttered “ Shame ! ” and the womei 
“ Brute ! ” and Sleary, in some haste, communicated the 
following hint, apart to Mr. Bounderby. 

“ I tell you what, Thquire. To thpeak plain to you, my 
opinion ith that you had better cut it thort, and drop it. 
They’re a very good natur’d people, my people, but 
they’re accuthtomed to be quick in their movementh ; 
and if you don’t act upon my advithe, I'm damned if I 
don’t believe they’ll pith you out o’ winder.” 

Mr. Bounderby being restrained by this mild sugges- 
tion, Mr. Gradgrind found an opening for his eminently 
practical exposition of the subject. 

“ It is of no moment,” said he, “ whether this person is 
to he expected back at any time, or the contrary. He is 
gone away, and there is no present expectation of his re- 
turn. That, I believe, is agreed on all hands.” 

“ Thath agreed, Thquire. Tlitick to that!” From 
Sleary. 

“ Well then. I, who came here to inform the fathei 
of the poor girl, Jupe, that she could not be received at 
he school any more, in consequence of there being prac- 
ical objections, into which I need not enter, to the recep 
tion there of the children of persons so employed, am 
prepared in these altered circumstances to make a pro- 
posal. I am willing to take charge of you, Jupe, and to 
educate you, and provide for you. The only condition 
(over and above your good behavior) I make is, that you 


HARD TIMES. 


00 


decide now, at once, whether to accompany me 01 remain 
here. Also, that if you accompany me now, it is under- 
stood that you communicate no more with any of your 
friends who are here present. These observations com- 
prise the whole of the case.” 

“At the thame time,” said Sleary, “ I mutht put in my 
word, Thquire, tho that both thides of the banner may 
be equally theen. If you like, Thethilia, to be prentitht, 
you know the natur of the work and you know your com- 
panionth. Emma Gordon, in whotlie lap you're a-lying 
at prethent, would be a mother to you, and Joth’phine 
would be a thithter to you. I don’t pretend to be of the 
angel breed myself, and I don’t thay but what, when you 
mith'd your tip, you’d find me cut up rough, and thwear 
a oath or two at you. But what I thay, Thquire, ith, 
that good tempered or bad tempered, I never did a liorthe 
a injury yet, no more than th wearing at him went, and 
that I don’t expect I tliall begin otherwithe at my time 
of life, with a rider. I never wath much of a Cackler, 
Thquire, and I have thed my thay.” 

The latter part of this speech was addressed to Mr. 
Gradgrind, who received it with a grave inclination of 
his head, and then remarked : 

“ The only observation I will make to you, Jupe, in 
the way of influencing your decision, is, that it is highly 
desirable to have a sound practical education, and that 
even your father himself (from what I understand) ap- 
pears, on your behalf, to have known and felt that 
much.” 

The last words had a visible effect upon her. She 
stopped in her wild crying, a little detached herself from 
Emma Gordon, and turned her face full upon her patron. 
The whole company perceived the force of the change, 


56 


HARD TIMES. 


and drew a long breath together, that plainly said, “ she 
will go ! ” 

“ Be sure you know your own mind, Jupe,” Mr. Grad- 
grind cautioned her ; “ I say no more. Be sure you know 
your own mind ! ” 

66 When father comes back,” cried the girl, bursting 
nto tears again after a minute’s silence, “ how will he 
ever find me if I go away ! ” 

“ You may be quite at ease,” said Mr. Gradgrind, 
calmly ; he worked out the whole matter like a sum : 
“ you may be quite at ease, Jupe, on that score. In 
such a case, your father, I apprehend, must find out 
Mr. — ” 

“ Thleary. Thath my name, Thquire. Not athamed 
of it. Known all over England, and alwayth paythe ith 
way.” 

“ Must find out Mr. Sleary, who would then let him 
know where you went. I should have no power of 
keeping you against his wish, and he would have no diffi- 
culty, at any time, in finding Mr. Thomas Gradgrind of 
Coketown. I am well known.” 

“ WeM known,” assented Mr. Sleary, rolling his loose 
eye. “ You’re one of the tliort, Thquire, that keeptli a 
prethiouth thight of money out of the houthe. But never 
mind that at prethent.” 

There was another silence ; and then she exclaimed, 
sobbing with her hands before her face, “ Oh give me my 
clothes, give me my clothes, and let me go away before I 
break my heart ! ” 

The women sadly bestirred themselves to get the 
dothes together — it was soon done, for they were not 
many — and to pack them in a basket which had often 
travelled with them. Sissy sat all the time, upon the 


HARD TIMES. 


0 / 


ground, still sobbing, and covering her eyes. Mr. Grad- 
grind and his friend Bounderby stood near the door, 
ready to take her away. Mr. Sleary stood in the middle 
of the room, with the male members of the company 
about him, exactly as he would have stood in the centr 
of the ring during his daughter Josephine’s performance 
He wanted nothing but his whip. 

The basket packed in silence, they brought her bonnet 
to her, and smoothed her disordered hair, and put it on. 
Then they pressed about her, and bent over her in very 
natural attitudes, kissing and embracing her : and brought 
the children to take leave of her ; and were a tender- 
hearted, simple, foolish set of women altogether. 

“ Now, Jupe,” said Mr. Gradgrind. “ If you are quite 
determined, come ! ” 

But she had to take her farewell of the male part of 
the company yet, and every one of them had to unfold 
his arms (for they all assumed the professional attitude 
when they found themselves near Sleary), and give her 
a parting kiss — Master Kidderminster excepted, in 
whose young nature there was an original flavor of the 
misanthrope, who was also known to have harbored mat- 
rimonial views, and who moodily withdrew. Mr. Sleary 
was reserved until the last. Opening his arms wide he 
took her by both her hands, and would have sprung her 
up and down, after the riding-master manner of congratu- 
lating young ladies on their dismounting from a rapid 
act ; but there was no rebound in Sissy, and she only 
stood before him crying. 

“ Good-by, my dear ! ” said Sleary. “ You’ll make your 
fortun, I hope, and none of our poor folkth will ever 
trouble you, I’ll pound it. I with your father hadn’t 
taken kith dog with him ; ith a ill-conwenienth to have 


58 


HARD TIMES. 


the dog out of the billth. But on thecond though th, life 
wouldn’t have performed without hith mathter, tho ith 
atli broad ath ith long ! ” 

With that he regarded her attentively with his fixed 
eye, surveyed his company with his loose one, kissed her 
hook his head, and handed her to Mr. Gradgrind as to 
horse. 

“ There the ith, Thquire,” he said, sweeping her with 
a professional glance as if she were being adjusted in 
her seat, “ and the’ll do you jutli tithe. Good-by, The- 
thilia ! ” 

“ Good-by, Cecilia ! ” “ Good-by, Sissy ! ” “ God 

bless you, dear ! ” In a variety of voices from all the 
room. 

But the riding-master eye had observed the bottle of 
nine oils in her bosom, and he now interposed with 
“ Leave the bottle, my dear ; ith large to carry ; it will 
be of no uthe to you now. Give it to me ! ” 

66 No, no ! ” she said, in another burst of tears. u Oh 
no ! Pray let me keep it for father till he comes back ! 
He will want it when he comes back. He had never 
thought of going away when he sent me for it. I must 
keep it for him, if you please ! ” 

“ Tho be it, my dear. (You thee how it ith, Thquire !) 
Farewell, Thethilia ! My latlit wordtli to you ith thith, 
Thtick to the termth of your engagement, be obedient to 
the Thquire, and forget uth. But if, when you’re grown 
up and married and well off, you come upon any horthe- 
riding ever, don’t be hard upon it, don’t be croth with it, 
give it a Bethpeak if you can, and think you might do 
wurth. People must be amuthed, Thquire, thomehow,” 
continued Sleary, rendered more pursy than ever, by so 
much talking ; “ they can’t be al way th a- working, nor 


HARD TIMES. 


59 


yet they can’t be alwayth a-leaming. Make the betht 
of uth ; not the wurtht. I’ve got my living out of the 
horthe-riding all my life, I know ; but I conthider that I 
lay down the philothopliy of the thubject when I thay to 
you, Thquire, make the betht of uth : not the wurtht ! ” 
The Sleary philosophy was propounded as they went 
down-stairs ; and the fixed eye of Philosophy — and its 
rolling eye, too — soon lost the three figures and the 
basket in the darkness of the street. 


CO 


HARD TIMES. 




CHAPTER VIL 

MRS. SPARSIT. 

Mr. Bounderey being a bachelor, an elderly lady 
presided over liis establishment, in consideration of a 
certain annual stipend. Mrs. Sparsit was this lady’s 
name ; and she was a prominent figure in attendance on 
Mr. Bounderby’s car, as it rolled along in triumph with 
the Bully of humility inside. 

For, Mrs. Sparsit had not only seen different days, but 
was highly connected. She had a great-aunt living in 
these very times called Lady Scadgers. Mr. Sparsit, 
deceased, of whom she was the relict, had been by the 
mother’s side what Mrs. Sparsit still called “ a Powler.” 
Strangers of limited information and dull apprehension 
were sometimes observed not to know what a Powler 
was, and even to appear uncertain whether it might be a 
business, or a political party, or a profession of faith. 
The better class of minds, however, did not need to be 
informed that the Powlers were an ancient stock, who 
could trace themselves so exceedingly far back that i 
was not surprising if they sometimes lost themselves — 
which they had rather frequently done, as respected 
horse-flesh, blind-hookey, Hebrew monetary transactions, 
and the Insolvent Debtors Court. 

The late Mr. Sparsit, being by the mother’s side a 
Powler, married this lady, being by the father’s side a 


HARD TIMES. 


61 


Scadgers. Lady Scadgers (an immensely fat old woman, 
with an inordinate appetite for butcher’s meat, and a 
mysterious leg which had now refused to get out of bed 
for fourteen years) contrived the marriage at a period 
when Sparsit was just of age, and chiefly noticeable for 
a slender body, weakly supported on two long slim props, 
and surmounted by no head worth mentioning. He 
inherited a fair fortune from his uncle, but owed it all 
before he came into it, and spent it twice over imme- 
diately afterwards. Thus, when he died, at twenty-four 
(the scene of his decease, Calais, and the cause brandy), 
he did not leave his widow, from whom he had been 
separated soon after the honeymoon, in affluent circum- 
stances. That bereaved lady, fifteen years older than 
he, fell presently at deadly feud with her only relative, 
Lady Scadgers ; and, partly to spite her ladyship, and 
partly to maintain herself, went out at a salary. And 
here she was now, in her elderly days, with the Corio- 
lanian style of nose and the dense black eyebrows which 
had captivated Sparsit, making Mr. Bounderby’s tea as 
he took his breakfast. 

If Bounderby had been a Conqueror, and Mrs. Sparsit 
a captive Princess whom he took about as a feature in 
his state-processions, he could not have made a greater 
flourish with her than he habitually did. Just as it be- 
longed to his boastfulness to depreciate his own extrac- 
tion, so it belonged to it to exalt Mrs. Sparsit’s. In the 
neasure that he would not allow his own youth to have 
been attended by a single favorable circumstance, he 
brightened Mrs. Sparsit’s juvenile career with every pos- 
sible advantage, and showered wagon-loads of early roses 
all over that lady’s path. “ And yet, sir,” he would say, 
“ how does it turn out after all ? Why, here she is at 


62 


HARD TIMES. 


a hundred a year (I give her a hundred, which she is 
pleased to term handsome), keeping the house of Josiah 
Bounderby of Coketown ! ” 

Nay, he made this foil of his so very widely known, 
that third parties took it up, and handled it on some occa 
sions with considerable briskness. It was one of tht 
most exasperating attributes of Bounderby, that he not 
only sang his own praises but stimulated other men to 
sing them. There was a moral infection of clap-trap in 
him. Strangers, modest enough elsewhere, started up at 
dinners in Coketown, and boasted, in quite a rampant 
way, of Bounderby. They made him out to be the 
Royal arms, the Union-Jack, Magna Charta, John Bull, 
Habeas Corpus, the Bill of Rights, An Englishman’s 
house is his castle, Church and State, and God save 
the Queen, all put together. And as often (and it was 
very often) as an orator of this kind brought into his 
peroration, 

“ Princes and Lords may flourish or may fade, 

A breath can make them, as a breath has made,” 

— it was, for certain, more or less understood among the 
company that he had heard of Mrs. Sparsit. 

“ Mr. Bounderby,” said Mrs. Sparsit, “ you are unusu- 
ally slow, sir, with your breakfast this morning.” 

“ Why, ma’am,” he returned, “ I am thinking about 
Tom Gradgrind’s whim ; ” Tom Gradgrind, for a bluff 
independent manner of speaking — as if somebody wer 
always endeavoring to bribe him with immense sums t 
say Thomas, and he wouldn’t ; 66 Tom Gradgrind’s whim, 
ma’am, of bringing up the tumbling-girl.” 

“ The girl is now waiting to know,” said Mrs. Sparsit, 
whether she is to go straight to the school, or up to the 
Lodge.” 


HARD TIMES. 


63 


“ She must wait, ma’am,” answered Bounderby, “ till 
I know myself. We shall have Tom Gradgrind down 
here presently, I suppose. If he should wish her to 
remain here a day or two longer, of course she can, 
ma’am.” 

“ Of course she can if you wish it, Mr. Bounderby.” 

“ I told him I would give her a shake-down here, las 
night, in order that he might sleep on it before he decided 
to let her have any association with Louisa.” 

“ Indeed, Mr. Bounderby ? Very thoughtful of you ! ” 
Mrs. Sparsit’s Coriolanian nose underwent a slight 
expansion of the nostrils, and her black eyebrows con- 
tracted as she took a sip of tea. 

“ It’s tolerably clear to me” said Bounderby, “ that the 
little puss can get small good out of such companionship.” 
“Are you speaking of young Miss Gradgrind, Mr. 
Bounderby ? ” 

“ Yes, ma’am, I am speaking of Louisa.” 

“ Your observation being limited to 6 little puss,’ ” said 
Mrs. Sparsit, “ and there being two little girls in ques- 
tion, 1 did not know which might be indicated by that 
expression.” 

“ Louisa,” repeated Mr. Bounderby. “ Louisa, Louisa.” 
“ You are quite another father to Louisa, sir.” Mrs. 
Sparsit took a little more tea ; and, as she bent her again 
contracted eyebrows over her steaming cup, rather looked 
as if her classical countenance were invoking the inferna 
gods. 

“ If you had said I was another father to Tom — 
young Tom, I mean, not my friend Tom Gradgrind — 
you might have been nearer the mark. I am going to 
take young Tom into my office. Going to have him 
under my wing, ma’am.” 


64 


HARD TIMES. 


“ Indeed ? Rather young for that, is he not, sir ? ” 
Mrs. Sparsit’s “ sir,” in addressing Mr. Bounderby, was 
a word of ceremony, rather exacting consideration for 
herself in the use, than honoring him. 

“ I’m not going to take him at once ; he is to finish his 
educational cramming before then,” said Bounderby. “ By 
the Lord Harry, he’ll have enough of it, first and last 
He’d open his eyes, that boy would, if he knew how 
empty of learning my young maw was, at his time of 
life.” Which, by the by, he probably did know, for he 
had heard of it often enough. u But it’s extraordinary 
the difficulty I have on scores of such subjects, in speak 
ing to any one on equal terms. Here, for example, I 
have been speaking to you this morning about tumblers. 
Why, what do you know about tumblers ? At the time 
when, to have been a tumbler in the mud of the streets, 
would have been a godsend to me, a prize in the lottery 
to me, you were at the Italian Opera. You were coming 
out of the Italian Opera, ma’am, in white satin and jew- 
els, a blaze of splendor, when I hadn’t a penny to buy a 
link to light you.” 

“ I certainly, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a dig- 
nity serenely mournful, “ was familiar with the Italian 
Opera at a very early age.” 

“ Egad, ma’am, so was I,” said Bounderby, “ — with 
the wrong side of it. A hard bed the pavement of its 
Arcade used to make, I assure you. People like you, 
na’am, accustomed from infancy to lie on Down feathers, 
have no idea how hard a paving-stone is, without trying 
it. No, no, it’s of no use my talking to you about tum- 
blers. I should speak of foreign dancers, and the West 
End of London, and May Fair, and lords and ladies and 
honorables.” 


HARD TIMES. 


65 


“ I trust, sir,” rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, with decent resig- 
nation, 44 it is not necessary that you should do anything 
of that kind. I hope I have learnt how to accommodate 
myself to the changes of life. If I have acquired an 
interest in hearing of your instructive experiences, and 
can scarcely hear enough of them, I claim no merit for 
that, since I believe it is a general sentiment.” 

44 Well, ma’am,” said her patron, 44 perhaps some people 
may be pleased to say that they do like to hear, in his 
own unpolished way, what Josiah Bounderby of Coke- 
town, has gone through. But you must confess that you 
were born in the lap of luxury, yourself. Come, ma’am, 
you know you were born in the lap of luxury.” 

44 1 do not, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit with a shake of 
her head, 44 deny it.” 

Mr. Bounderby was obliged to get up from table, and 
stand with his back to the fire, looking at her ; she was 
such an enhancement of his position. 

44 And you were in crack society. Devilish high 
society,” he said, warming his legs. 

44 It is true, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, with an affecta- 
tion of humility the very opposite of his, and therefore in 
no danger of jostling it. 

44 You were in the tiptop fashion, and all the rest of 
it,” said Mr. Bounderby. 

44 Yes, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a kind of 
social widowhood upon her. 44 It is unquestionably 
true.” 

Mr. Bounderby, bending himself at the knees, literally 
embraced his legs in his great satisfaction and laughed 
aloud. Mr. and Miss Gradgrind being then announced, 
he received the former with a shake of the hand, and the 
latter with a kiss. 


VOL. I. 


5 


66 


HARD TIMES. 


“Can Jupe be sent here, Bounderby?” asked Mr 
Gradgrind. 

Certainly. So Jupe was sent there. On coming in, 
she courtesied to Mr. Bounderby, and to his friend Tom 
Gradgrind, and also to Louisa ; but in her confusion un- 
luckily omitted Mrs. Sparsit. Observing this, the blus- 
trous Bounderby had the following remarks to make : 

“ Now, I tell you what, my girl. The name of that 
lady by the teapot, is Mrs. Sparsit. That lady acts as 
mistress of this house, and she is a highly connected lady. 
Consequently, if ever you come again into any room in 
this house, you will make a short stay in it if you don’t 
behave towards that lady in your most respectful manner. 
Now, I don’t care a button what you do to me , because I 
don’t affect to be anybody. So far from having high con- 
nections, I have no connections at all, and I come of the 
scum of the earth. But towards that lady, I do care 
what you do ; and you shall do what is deferential and 
respectful, or you shall not come here.” 

“ I hope, Bounderby,” said Mr. Gradgrind, in a con- 
ciliatory voice, “ that this was merely an oversight.” 

“ My friend Tom Gradgrind suggests, Mrs. Sparsit,” 
said Bounderby, “that this was merely an oversight. 
Very likely. However, as you are aware, ma’am, I don’t 
allow of even oversights towards you.” 

“ You are very good indeed, sir,” returned Mrs. Spar- 
it, shaking her head with her State of humility. “ It is 
ot worth speaking of.” 

Sissy, who all this time had been faintly excusing her- 
self with tears in her eyes, was now waved over by the 
master of the house to Mr. Gradgrind. She stood, look- 
ing intently at him, and Louisa stood coldly by, with her 
eyes upon the gre and, while he proceeded thus : 


\ 


HARD TIMES. 


67 


“ Jupe, I have made up my mind to take you into my 
house ; and, when you are not in attendance at the school, 
to employ you about Mrs. Gradgrind, who is rather an 
invalid. I have explained to Miss Louisa — this is Miss 
Louisa — the miserable but natural end of your late 
career ; and you are to expressly understand that the 
whole of that subject is past, and is not to be referred to 
any more. From this time you begin your history. You 
are, at present, ignorant, I know.” 

“ Yes, sir, very,” she answered, courtesying. 

“ I shall have the satisfaction of causing you to be 
strictly educated ; and you will be a living proof to all 
who come into communication with you, of the advan- 
tages of the training you will receive. You will be 
reclaimed and formed. You have been in the habit now 
of reading to your father, and those people I found you 
among, I dare say ? ” said Mr. Gradgrind, beckoning 
her nearer to him before he said so, and dropping his 
voice. 

“ Only to father and Merrylegs, sir. At least I mean 
to father, when Merrylegs was always there.” 

“ Never mind Merrylegs, Jupe,” said Mr. Gradgrind, 
with a passing frown. “ I don’t ask about him. I under- 
stand you to have been in the habit of reading to your 
father ? ” 

“ O yes, sir, thousands of times. They were the 
lappiest — O, of all the happy times we had together, 
sir ! ” 

It was only now when her sorrow broke out, that 
Louisa looked at her. 

“ And what,” asked Mr. Gradgrind, in a still lower 
roice, “ did you read to your father, Jupe ? ” 

“ About the Fairies, sir, and the Dwarf, and the 


68 


HARD TIMES. 


Hunchback, and the Genies,” she sobbed out ; “ and 
about ” — 

“ Plush ! ” said Mr. Gradgrind, “ that is enough. 
Never breathe a word of such destructive nonsense any 
more. Bounderby, this is a case for rigid training, and 
T shall observe it with interest.” 

“Well,” returned Mr. Bounderby, “I have given you 
my opinion already, and I shouldn’t do as you do. But, 
very well, very well. Since you are bent upon it, very 
well ! ” 

So, Mr. Gradgrind and his daughter took Cecilia Jupe 
off with them to Stone Lodge, and on the way Louisa 
never spoke one word, good or bad. And Mr. Bounderby 
went about his daily pursuits. And Mrs. Sparsit got 
behind her eyebrows and meditated in the gloom of that 
retreat, all the evening. 




\ 


HARD TIMES. 


69 


CHAPTER YIH. 

NEVER WONDER. 

Let us strike the key-note again, before pursuing the 
tune. 

When she was half a dozen years younger, Louisa had 
been overheard to begin a conversation with her brother 
one day, by saying “ Tom, I wonder ” — upon which 
Mr. Gradgrind, who was the person overhearing, stepped 
forth into the light, and said, “ Louisa, never wonder ! ” 

Herein lay the spring of the mechanical art and mys- 
tery of educating the reason without stooping to the cul- 
tivation of the sentiments and affections. Never wonder. 
By means of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and 
division, settle everything somehow, and never wonder. 
Bring to me, says M’Choakumchild, yonder baby just 
able to walk, and I will engage that it shall never 
wonder. 

Now, besides very many babies just able to walk, 
there happened to be in Coketown a considerable popu- 
ation of babies who had been walking against time 
owards the infinite world, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty 
years and more. These portentous infants being alarm 
ing creatures to stalk about in any human society, the 
eighteen denominations incessantly scratched one an- 
other’s faces and pulled one another’s hair by way of 
agreeing on the steps to be takm for their improvement 


70 


HARD TIMES. 


— which they never did ; a surprising circumstance, 
when the happy adaptation of the means to the end is 
considered. Still, although they differed in every other 
particular, conceivable and inconceivable (especially in- 
conceivable), they were pretty well united on the point 
that these unlucky infants were never to wonder. Bod) 
number one, said they must take everything on trust 
Body number two, said they must take everything on 
political economy. Body number three, wrote leaden 
little books for them, showing how the good grown-up 
baby invariably got to the Savings-bank, and the bad 
grown-up baby invariably got transported. Body num- 
ber four, under dreary pretences of being droll (when it 
was very melancholy indeed), made the shallowest pre- 
tences of concealing pitfalls of knowledge, into which it 
was the duty of these babies to be smuggled and in- 
veigled. But, all the bodies agreed that they were 
never to wonder. 

There was a library in Coketown, to which general 
access was easy. Mr. Gradgrind greatly tormented his 
mind about what the people read in this library : a point 
whereon little rivers of tabular statements periodically 
flowed into the howling ocean of tabular statements, 
which no diver ever got to any depth in and came up 
sane. It was a disheartening circumstance, but a melan- 
choly fact, that even these readers persisted in wondering. 
They wondered about human nature, human passions, 
human hopes and fears, the struggles, triumphs and de- 
feats, the cares and joys and sorrows, the lives and deaths, 
of common men and women ! They sometimes, after 
fifteen hours’ work, sat down to read mere fables about 
men and women, more or less like themselves, and about 
children, more or less like their own. They took De 


HARD TIMES. 


71 


Foe to their bosoms, instead of Euclid, and seemed to 
be on the whole more comforted by Goldsmith than 
by Cocker. Mr. Gradgrind was forever working, in 
print and out of print, at this eccentric sum, and he 
never could make out how it yielded this unaccountable 
product. 

“ I am sick of my life, Loo. I hate it altogether, and 
1 hate everybody except you,” said the unnatural young 
Thomas Gradgrind in the hair-cutting chamber at twi- 
light. 

“ You don’t hate Sissy, Tom ? ” 

“ I hate to be obliged to call her Jupe. And she hates 
me,” said Tom moodily. 

“ No she does not, Tom, I am sure.” 

“ She must,” said Tom. “ She must just hate and detest 
the whole set-out of us. They’ll bother her head off, I 
think, before they have done with her. Already she’s 
getting as pale as wax, and as heavy as — I am.” 

Young Thomas expressed these sentiments sitting 
astride of a chair before the fire, with his arms on the 
back, and his sulky face on his arms. His sister sat in 
the darker corner by the fireside, now looking at him, 
now looking at the bright sparks as they dropped upon 
the hearth. 

“As to me,” said Tom, tumbling his hair all manner 
of ways with his sulky hands, “ I am a Donkey, that’s 
what / am. I am as obstinate as one, I am more stupid 
than one, I get as much pleasure as one, and I should 
like to kick like one.” 

“ Not me, I hope, Tom ? ” 

“ No, Loo ; I wouldn’t hurt you . I made an exception 
of you at first. I don’t know what this — jolly old — • 
Jaundiced Jail,” Tom had paused to find a sufficiently 


72 


HARD TIMES. 


complimentary and expressive name for the parental 
roof, and seemed to relieve his mind for a moment by 
the strong alliteration of this one, “ would be without 
you.” 

“ Indeed, Tom ? Do you really and truly say so ? ” 

“Why, of course I do. What’s the use of talking 
about it ! ” returned Tom, chafing his face on his coat- 
sleeve, as if to mortify his flesh, and have it in unison 
with his spirit. 

“ Because, Tom,” said his sister, after silently watching 
the sparks awhile, “ as I get older, and nearer growing 
up, I often sit wondering here, and think how unfortu- 
nate it is for me that I can’t reconcile you to home better 
than I am able to do. I don’t know what other girls 
know. I can’t play to you, or sing to you. I can’t talk 
to you so as to lighten »your mind, for I never see any 
amusing sights or read any amusing books that it would 
be a pleasure or a relief to you to talk about, when you 
are tired.” 

“ Well, no more do I. I am as bad as you in that re- 
spect ; and I am a Mule too, which you’re not. If father 
was determined to make me either a Prig or a Mule, 
and I am not a Prig, why, it stands to reason, I must be 
a Mule. And so I am,” said Tom, desperately. 

“ It’s a great pity,” said Louisa, after another pause, 
and speaking thoughtfully out of her dark corner ; “ it’s 
a great pity, Tom. It’s very unfortunate for both of 
us.” 

“ Oh ! You,” said Tom ; “you are a girl, Loo, and a 
girl comes out of it better than a boy does. I doti’t miss 
anything in you. You are the only pleasure I have — 
you can brighten even this place — and you can always 
lead me as you like.” 


HARD TIMES. 


78 


“ You are a dear brother, Tom ; and while you think 
I can do such things, I don’t so much mind knowing bet- 
ter. Though I do know better, Tom, and am very sorry 
for it.” She came and kissed him, and went back into 
her corner again. 

“ I wish I could collect all the Facts we hear so much 
about,” said Tom, spitefully setting his teeth, “ and all 
the Figures, and all the people who found them out ; 
and I wish I could put a thousand barrels of gunpowder 
under them, and blow them all up together ! However, 
when I go to live with old Bounderby, I’ll have my 
revenge.” 

“ Your revenge, Tom ? ” 

“ I mean, I’ll enjoy myself a little, and go about and 
see something, and hear something. I’ll recompense my- 
self for the way in which I have been brought up.” 

“ But don’t disappoint yourself beforehand, Tom. Mr. 
Bounderby thinks as father thinks, and is a great deal 
rougher, and not half so kind.” 

“ Oh ; ” said Tom, laughing ; “ I don’t mind that. I 
shall very well know how to manage and smoothe old 
Bounderby.” 

Their shadows were defined upon the wall, but those 
of the high presses in the room were all blended together 
on the wall and on the ceiling, as if the brother and 
sister were overhung by a dark cavern. Or, a fanciful 
magination — if such treason could have been there — 
night have made it out to be the shadow of their subject, 
and of its lowering association with their future. 

“ What is your great mode of smoothing and manag- 
ing Tom ? Is it a secret ? ” 

u Oh ! ” said Tom, “ if it is a secret, it’s not far off. 
It’s you. You are his little pet, you are his favorite ; 


74 


HARD TIMES. 


he’ll do anything for you. When he says to me what I 
don’t like, I shall say to him, 4 My sister Loo will be hurt 
and disappointed, Mr. Bounderby. She always used to 
tell me she was sure you would be easier with me than 
this. That’ll bring him about, or nothing will.” 

After waiting for some answering remark, and getting 
none, Tom wearily relapsed into the present time, and 
twined himself yawning round and about the rails of his 
chair, and rumpled his head more and more, until he 
suddenly looked up, and asked, — 

“ Have you gone to sleep, Loo ? ” 

“ No, Tom. I am looking at the fire.” 

“ You seem to find more to look at in it than ever I 
could find,” said Tom. “ Another of the advantages, I 
suppose, of being a girl.” 

“ Tom,” inquired his sister, slowly, and in a curious 
tone, as if she were reading what she asked in the fire, 
and it were not quite plainly written there, “ do you 
look forward with any satisfaction to this change to Mr. 
Bounderby’s ? ” 

“ Why, there’s one thing to be said of it,” returned 
Tom, pushing his chair from him, and standing up ; “ it 
will be getting away from home.” 

“ There is one thing to be said of it,” Louisa repeated 
in her former curious tone ; “ it will be getting away 
from home. Yes.” 

“ Not but what I shall be very unwilling, both to leave 
you, Loo, and to leave you here. But I must go, you 
know, whether I like it or not ; and I had better go 
where I can take with me some advantage of your influ- 
ence, than where I should lose it altogether. Don’t you 
see ? ” 

“ Yes, Tom.” 


HARD TIMES. 


75 


The answer was so long in coming, though there was 
no indecision in it, that Tom went and leaned on the back 
of her chair, to contemplate the fire which so engrossed 
her, from her point of view, and see what he could make 
of it. 

“ Except that it is a fire,” said Tom, “ it looks to m< 
as stupid and blank as everything else looks. What d< 
you see in it ? Not a circus ? ” 

“ I don’t see anything in it, Tom, particularly. But 
since I have been looking at it, I have been wondering 
about you and me, grown up.” 

“ Wondering again ! ” said Tom. 

“ I have such unmanageable thoughts,” returned his 
sister, “ that they will wonder.” 

“ Then I beg of you, Louisa,” said Mrs. Gradgrind, 
who had opened the door without being heard, “ to do 
nothing of that description, for goodness’ sake you incon- 
siderate girl, or I shall never hear the last of it from 
your father. And Thomas, it is really shameful, with 
my poor head continually wearing me out, that a boy 
brought up as you have been, and whose education has 
cost what yours has, should be found encouraging his sis- 
ter to wonder, when he knows his father has expressly 
said that she is not to do it.” 

Louisa denied Tom’s participation in the offence ; but 
her mother stopped her with the conclusive answer, 
“ Louisa, don’t tell me, in my state of health ; for unless 
you had been encouraged, it is morally and physically 
impossible that you could have done it.” 

“ I was encouraged by nothing, mother, but by looking 
at the red sparks dropping out of the fire, and whitening 
and dying. It made me think, after all, how short my 
life would be, and how little I could hope to do in it.” 


76 


HARD TIMES. 


“ Nonsense ! ” said Mrs. Gradgrind, rendered almost 
energetic. “ Nonsense ! Don’t stand there and tell me 
such stuff, Louisa, to my face, when you know very well 
that if it was ever to reach your fathers ears I should 
never hear the last of it. After all the trouble that has 
been taken with you ! After the lectures you have at- 
tended, and the experiments you have seen ! After I 
have heard you myself, when the whole of my right side 
has been benumbed, going on with your master about 
combustion, and calcination, and calorification, and I may 
say every kind of ation that could drive a poor invalid 
distracted, to hear you talking in this absurd way about 
sparks and ashes ! I wish,” whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind, 
taking a chair, and discharging her strongest point before 
succumbing under these mere shadows of facts, “ yes, I 
really do wish that I had never had a family, and then you 
would have known what it was to do without me ! ” 


HARD TIMES. 


77 


CHAPTER IX. 

sissy’s progress. 

Sissy Jupe had not an easy time of it, between Mr. 
M’Choakumchild and Mrs. Gradgrind, and was not with- 
out strong impulses, in the first months of her probation, 
to run away. It hailed facts all day long so very hard, 
and life in general was opened to her as such a closely 
ruled ciphering-book, that assuredly she would have run 
away, but for only one restraint. 

It is lamentable to think of ; but this restraint was the 
result of no arithmetical process, was self-imposed in de- 
fiance of all calculation, and went dead against any table 
of probabilities that any Actuary would have drawn up 
from the premises. The girl believed that her father 
had not deserted her ; she lived in the hope that he 
would come back, and in the faith that he would be made 
the happier by her remaining where she was. 

The wretched ignorance with which Jupe clung to this 
consolation, rejecting the superior comfort of knowing, on 
a sound arithmetical basis, that her father was an unnat 
ural vagabond, filled Mr. Gradgrind with pity. Yet 
what was to be done ? M’Choakumchild reported that she 
had a very dense head for figures ; that, once possessed 
with a general idea of the globe, she took the smallest 
conceivable interest in its exact measurements ; that she 
was extremely slow in the acquisition of dates, unless 


HARD TIMES. 


*23 

some pitiful incident happened to be connected therewith ; 
that she would burst into tears on being required (by the 
mental process) immediately to name the cost of' two 
hundred and forty-seven muslin caps at fourteenpenca 
halfpenny ; that she was as low down, in the school, as 
ow could be ; that after eight weeks of induction into 
the elements of Political Economy, she had only yester 
day been set right by a prattler three feet high, for re 
turning to the question, “ What is the first principle of 
this science ? ” the absurd answer, “ To do unto others as 
I would that they should do unto me.” 

Mr. Gradgrind observed, shaking his head, that all this 
was very bad ; that it showed the necessity of infinite 
grinding at the mill of knowledge, as per system, sched- 
ule, blue book, report, and tabular statements A to Z ; 
and that Jupe “ must be kept to it.” So Jupe was kept 
to it, and became low-spirited, but no wiser. 

“ It would be a fine thing to be you, Miss Louisa ! ” 
she said, one night, when Louisa had endeavored to make 
her perplexities for next day something clearer to her. 

“ Do you think so ? ” 

“I should know so much, Miss Louisa. All that is 
difficult to me now, would be so easy then.” 

“ You might not be the better for it, Sissy.” 

Sissy submitted, after a little hesitation, “ I should not 
be the worse, Miss Louisa.” To which Miss Louisa an 
swered, “ I don’t know that.” 

There had been so little communication between these 
two — both because life at Stone Lodge went monoto- 
nously round like a piece of machinery which discouraged 
human interference, and because of the prohibition rel- 
ative to Sissy’s past career — that they were still almost 
strangers. Sissy, with her dark eyes wonderingly directed 


HARD TIMES. 


79 


to Louisa’s face, was uncertain whether to say more or to 
remain silent. 

“ You are more useful to my mother, and more pleas- 
ant with her, than I can ever be,” Louisa resumed 
“ You are pleasanter to yourself, than 1 am to my self.” 

“ But, if you please, Miss Louisa,” Sissy pleaded, u 
am — O so stupid ! ” 

Louisa, with a brighter laugh than usual, told her sh( 
would be wiser by and by. 

“ You don’t know,” said Sissy, half crying, “ what a 
stupid girl I am. All through school-hours I make mis- 
takes. Mr. and Mrs. M’Choakumchild call me up, over 
and over again, regularly to make mistakes. I can’t 
help them. They seem to come natural to me.” 

“Mr. and Mrs. M’Choakumchild never make any mis- 
takes themselves, I suppose, Sissy ? ” 

“ 0 no ! ” she eagerly returned. “ They know every- 
thing.” 

“ Tell me some of your mistakes.” 

“ I am almost ashamed,” said Sissy, with reluctance. 
“ But to-day, foi instance, Mr. M’Choakumchild was ex- 
plaining to us about Natural Prosperity.” 

“ National, I think it must have been,” observed 
Louisa. 

“ Yes, it was. — But isn’t it the same ? ” she timidly 
asked. 

“ You had better say National, as he said so,” returned 
Louisa, with her dry reserve. 

“ National Prosperity. And he said, Now, this school- 
room is a Nation. And in this nation, there are fifty 
millions of money. Isn’t this a prosperous nation ? Girl 
number twenty, isn’t this a prosperous nation, and a’n’t 
you in a thriving state ? ” 


80 


hard times. 


u What did you say ? ” asked Louisa. 
u Miss Louisa, I said I didn’t know. I thought 1 
couldn’t know whether it was a prosperous nation or not, 
and whether I was in a thriving state or not, unless I 
knew who had got the money, and whether any of it was 
mine. But that had nothing to do with it. It was no 
in the figures at all/’ said Sissy, wiping her eyes. 

<4 That was a great mistake of yours,” observed 
Louisa. 

“ Yes, Miss Louisa, I know it was, now. Then Mr. 
M’Choakumchild said he would try me again. And he 
said, This schoolroom is an immense town, and in it there 
are a million of inhabitants, and only five-and-twenty are 
starved to death in the streets, in the course of a year. 
What is your remark on that proportion ? And my re- 
mark was — for I couldn’t think of a better one — that 
I thought it must be just as hard upon those who were 
starved, whether the others were a million, or a million 
million. And that was wrong, too.” 

“ Of course it was.” 

“ Then Mr. M’Choakumchild said he would try me 
once more. And he said, Here are the stutterings — ” 

“ Statistics,” said Louisa. 

“ Yes, Miss Louisa — they always remind me of stut- 
terings, and that’s another of my mistakes — of accidents 
upon the sea. And I find (Mr. M’Choakumchild said) 
that in a given time a hundred thousand persons went to 
sea on long voyages, and only five hundred of them were 
drowned or burnt to death. What is the percentage ? 
And I said, Miss ; ” here Sissy fairly sobbed as confess- 
ing with extreme contrition to her greatest error ; u .1 
'aid it was nothing.” 

“ Nothing, Sissy ? ” 


HARD TIMES. 


81 


/ 


u .Nothing, Miss — to the relations and friends of the 
people who were killed. I shall never learn,” said Sissy. 
“And the worst of all is, that although my poor father 
wished me so much to learn, and although I am so anx- 
ious to learn, because he wished me to, I am afraid I 
don’t like it.” 

Louisa stood looking at the pretty modest head, as it 
drooped abashed before her, until it was raised again to 
glance at her face. Then she asked : 

“ Did your father know so much himself, that he wished 
you to be well taught too, Sissy ? ” 

Sissy hesitated before replying, and so plainly showed 
her sense that they were entering on forbidden ground, 
that Louisa added, “No one hears us ; and if any one 
did, I am sure no harm could be found in such an inno- 
cent question.” 

“ No, Miss Louisa,” answered Sissy, upon this encour- 
agement, shaking her head ; “ father knows very little 
indeed. It’s as much as he can do to write ; and it’s 
more than people in general can do to read his writing. 
Though it’s plain to me. v 
“ Your mother ? ” 

“ Father says she was quite a scholar. She died when 
I was born. She was ; ” Sissy made the terrible com- 
munication nervously ; “ she was a dancer.” 

“ Did your father love her ? ” Louisa asked these ques- 
tions with a strong, wild, wandering interest peculiar to 
her ; an interest gone astray like a banished creature, 
and hiding in solitary places. 

“O yes! As dearly as he loves me. Father loved 
me, first, for her sake. He carried me about with him 
when I was quite a baby. We have never been asunder 
from that time. 


VOL. I. 


6 


82 


HARD TIMES. 


“ Yet he leaves you now, Sissy ? ” 

“ Only for my good. Nobody understands him ,as I 
do ; nobody knows him as I do. When he left me for 
my good — he never would have left me for his own — 
I know he was almost broken-hearted with the trial 
He will not be happy for a single minute, till he comes 
back.” 

“ Tell me more about him,” said Louisa, “ I will never 
ask you again. Where did you live ? ” 

“We travelled about the country, and had no fixed 
place to live in. Father’s a — ” Sissy whispered the awful 
word, “ a clown.” 

“ To make the people laugh ? ” said Louisa, with a nod 
of intelligence. 

“ Yes. But they wouldn’t laugh sometimes, and then 
father cried. Lately, they very often wouldn’t laugh, 
and he used to come home despairing. Father’s not like 
most. Those who didn’t know him as well as I do, and 
didn’t love him as dearly as I do, might believe he was 
not quite right. Sometimes they played tricks upon 
him ; but they never knew how he felt them, and shrunk 
up, when he was alone with me. He was far, far timider 
than they thought ! ” 

“ And you were his comfort through everything ? ” 

She nodded, with the tears rolling down her face. “ I 
hope so, and father said I was. It was because he grew 
so scared and trembling, and because he felt himself to 
be a poor, weak, ignorant, helpless man (those used to be 
his words), that he wanted me so much to know a great 
deal, and be different from him. I used to read to him 
to cheer his courage, and he was very fond of that. They 
were wrong books — I am never to speak of them here 
— but we didn’t know there was any harm in them.” 


HARD TIMES. 


83 


“ And he liked them ? ” said Louisa, with her search- 
ing gaze on Sissy all this time. 

66 O very much ! They kept him, many times, from 
what did him real harm. And often and often of a night, 
he used to forget all his troubles in wondering whether 
the Sultan would let the lady go on with the story, 01 
would have her head cut off before it was finished.” 

t( And your father was always kind ? To the last ? ” 
asked Louisa ; contravening the great principle, and 
wondering very much. 

“ Always, always ! ” returned Sissy, clasping her hands. 
“ Kinder and kinder than I can tell. He was angry only 
one night, and that was not to me, but Merrylegs. Mer- 
rylegs ; ” she whispered the awful fact ; “ is his performing 
dog.” 

“ Why was he angry with the dog ? ” Louisa de- 
manded. 

“ Father, soon after they came home from performing, 
told Merrylegs to jump up on the backs of the two chairs 
and stand across them — which is one of his tricks. He 
looked at father, and didn’t do it at once. Everything 
of father’s had gone wrong that night, and he hadn’t 
pleased the public at all. He cried out that the very 
dog knew he was failing, and had no compassion on him. 
Then he beat the dog, and I was frightened, and said, 
‘ Father, father ! Pray don’t hurt the creature who is 
so fond of you ! O Heaven forgive you, father, stop ! 
And he stopped, and the dog was bloody, and father lay 
down crying on the floor with the dog in his arms, and 
the dog licked his face.” 

Louisa saw that she was sobbing ; and going to her, 
kissed her, took her hand, and sat down beside her. 

“ Finish by telling me how your father left you, Sissy. 


84 


HARD TIMES. 


Now that I have asked you so much, tell me the end. 
The blame, if there is any blame, is mine, not yours.” 

“ Dear Miss Louisa,” said Sissy, covering her eyes, 
and sobbing yet, “ I came home from the school that 
afternoon, and found poor father just come home too, 
from the booth. And he sat rocking himself over the 
fire, as if he was in pain. And I said, 6 Have you hurt 
yourself, father ? ’ (as he did sometimes, like they all 
did,) and he said, c A little, my darling.’ And when I 
came to stoop down and look up at his face, I saw that 
he was crying. The more I spoke to him, the more he 
hid his face ; and at first he shook all over, and said 
nothing but 6 My darling ; ’ and ‘ My love ! ’ ” 

Here Tom came lounging in, and stared at the two 
with a coolness not particularly savoring of interest in 
anything but himself, and not much of that at present. 

“ 1 am asking Sissy a few questions, Tom,” observed 
his sister. “ You have no occasion to go away ; but 
don’t interrupt us for a moment, Tom dear.” 

“ Oh ! very well ! ” returned Tom. “ Only father has 
brought old Bounderby home, and I want you to come 
into the drawing-room. Because if you come, there’s a 
good chance of old Bounderby’s asking me to dinner ; 
and if you don’t, there’s none.” 

“ I’ll come directly.” 

“ I’ll wait for you,” said Tom, “ to make sure.” 

Sissy resumed in a lower voice. “ At last poor father 
aid that he had given no satisfaction again, and never 
did give any satisfaction now, and that he was a shame 
and disgrace, and I should have done better without him 
all along. I said all the affectionate things to him that 
came into my heart, and presently he was quiet and I 
sat down by him, and told him all about the school and 


HARD TIMES. 85 

everything that had been said and done there. When 1 
had no more left to tell, he put his arms round my neck, 
and kissed me a great many times. Then he asked me 
to fetch some of the stuff he used, for the little hurt he 
had had, and to get it at the best place, which was at the 
other end of town from there ; and then, after kissing 
me again, he let me go. When I had gone down-stairs, 
I turned back that I might be a little bit more company 
to him yet, and looked in at the door, and said, ‘ Father 
dear, shall I take Merrylegs ? ’ Father shook his head 
and said, 6 No, Sissy, no ; take nothing that’s known to 
be mine, my darling ; ’ and I left him sitting by the fire. 
Then the thought must have come upon him, poor, poor 
father ! of going away to try something for my sake ; 
for, when I came back, he was gone.” 

“ I say ! Look sharp for old Bounderby, Loo ! ” Tom 
remonstrated. 

“ There’s no more to tell, Miss Louisa. I keep the 
nine oils ready for him, and I know he will come back. 
Every letter that I see in Mr. Gradgrind’s hand takes 
my breath away and blinds my eyes, for I think it comes 
from father, or from Mr. Sleary about father. Mr. Sleary 
promised to write as soon as ever father should be heard 
of, and I trust to him to keep his word.” 

“ Do look sharp for old Bounderby, Loo ! ” said Tom, 
with an impatient whistle. “ He'll be off if you don’t 
look sharp ! ” 

After this, whenever Sissy dropped a courtesy to Mr 
Gradgrind in the presence of his family, and said in a 
faltering way, “ I beg your pardon, sir, for being trouble- 
some — but — have you had any letter yet about me ? ” 
Louisa would suspend the occupation of the moment, 
whatever it was, and look for the reply as earnestly as 


86 


HARD TIMES. 


Sissy did. And when Mr. Gradgrind regularly answered, 
“ No, Jupe, nothing of the sort,” the trembling of Sissy’s 
lip would be repeated in Louisa’s face, and her eyes 
would follow Sissy with compassion to the door. Mr. 
Gradgrind usually improved these occasions by remark- 
ing, when she was gone, that if Jupe had been properly 
trained from an early age she would have demonstrated 
to herself on sound principles the baselessness of these 
fantastic hopes. Yet it did seem (though not to him, for 
he saw nothing of it) as if fantastic hope could take as 
strong a hold as Fact. 

This observation must be limited exclusively to his 
daughter. As to Tom, he was becoming that not unprece- 
dented triumph of calculation which is usually at work 
on number one. As to Mrs. Gradgrind, if she said any- 
thing on the subject, she would come a little way out of 
her wrappers, like a feminine dormouse, and say, — 

“ Good gracious bless me, how my poor head is vexed 
and worried by that girl Jupe’s so perse veringly asking, 
over and over again, about her tiresome letters ! Upon 
my word and honor I seem to be fated, and destined, and 
ordained, to live in the midst of things that I am never 
to hear the last of. It really is a most extraordinary cir- 
cumstance that it appears as if I never was to hear the 
last of anything ! ” 

At about this point, Mr. Gradgrind’s eye would fall 
upon her ; and under the influence of that wintry piece 
of fact, she would become torpid again. 


HARD TIMES. 


87 


CHAPTER X. 

8TEPHEN BLACKPOOL. 

I entertain a weak idea that the English people are 
as hard- worked as any people upon whom the sun shines. 
I acknowledge to this ridiculous idiosyncrasy, as a reason 
why I would give them a little more play. 

In the hardest working part of Coketown ; in the in- 
nermost fortifications of that ugly citadel, where Nature 
was as strongly bricked out as killing airs and gases were 
bricked in ; at the heart of the labyrinth of narrow courts 
upon courts, and close streets upon streets, which had come 
into existence piecemeal, every piece in a violent hurry for 
some one man’s purpose, and the whole an unnatural fam- 
ily, shouldering, and trampling, and pressing one another 
to death ; in the last close nook of this great exhausted 
receiver, where the chimneys, for want of air to make a 
draught, were built in an immense variety of stunted and 
crooked shapes, as though every house put out a sign of 
the kind of people who might be expected to be born in 
it ; among the multitude of Coketown, generically callet 
“ the Hands,” — a race who would have found more favoi 
with some people, if Providence had seen fit to make 
them only hands, or, like the lower creatures of the sea- 
shore, only hands and stomachs — lived a certain Stephen 
Blackpool, forty years of age. 

Stephen looked older, but he had had a hard life. It 


88 


HARD TIMES. 


is said that every life has its roses and thorns ; there 
seemed, however, to have been a misadventure or mis- 
take in Stephen’s case, whereby somebody else had be- 
come possessed of his roses, and he had become possessed 
of the same somebody else’s thorns in addition to his own. 
He had known, to use his words, a peck of trouble. He 
was usually called Old Stephen, in a kind of rough 
homage to the fact. 

A rather stooping man, with a knitted brow, a ponder- 
ing expression of face, and a hard-looking head sufficiently 
capacious, on which his iron-gray hair lay long and thin, 
Old Stephen might have passed for a particularly intel- 
ligent man in his condition. Yet he was not. He took 
no place among those remarkable “ Hands,” who, piecing 
together their broken intervals of leisure through many 
years, had mastered difficult sciences, and acquired a 
knowledge of most unlikely things. He held no station 
among the Hands who could make speeches and carry on 
debates. Thousands of his compeers could talk much 
better than he, at any time. He was a good power-loom 
weaver, and a man of perfect integrity. What more he 
was, or what else he had in him, if anything, let him 
show for himself. 

The lights in the great factories, which looked, when 
they were illuminated, like Fairy palaces — or the trav- 
ellers by express-train said so — were all extinguished 
and the bells had rung for knocking off for the night, and 
had ceased again ; and the Hands, men and women, boy 
and girl, were clattering home. Old Stephen was stand- 
ing in the street, with the odd sensation upon him which 
the stoppage of the machinery always produced — the 
sensation of its having worked and stopped in his own 
head. 


HARD TIMES. 


89 


“ Yet I don’t see Rachael, still ! ” said he. 

It was a wet night, and many groups of young women 
passed him, with their shawls drawn over their bare 
heads and held close under their chins to keep the rain 
out. He knew Rachael well, for a glance at any one of 
these groups was sufficient to show him that she was no 
there. At last, there were no more to come ; and thei. 
he turned away, saying in a tone of disappointment, 
“ Why, then, I ha’ missed her ! ” 

But, he had not gone the length of three streets, when 
he saw another of the shawled figures in advance of him, 
at which he looked so keenly that perhaps its mere 
shadow indistinctly reflected on the wet pavement — if 
he could have seen it without the figure itself moving 
along from lamp to lamp, brightening and fading as it 
went — would have been enough to tell him who was 
there. Making his pace at once much quicker and 
much softer, he darted on until he was very near this 
figure, then fell into his former walk, and called 
“ Rachael ! ” 

She turned, being then in the brightness of a lamp ; 
and raising her hood a little, showed a quiet oval face, 
dark and rather delicate, irradiated by a pair of very 
gentle eyes, and further set off by the perfect order of 
her shining black hair. It was not a face in its first 
bloom ; she was a woman five and thirty years of age. 

“ Ah, lad ! ’Tis thou ? ” When she had said this, 
with a smile which would have been quite expressed, 
though nothing of her had been seen but her pleasant 
eyes, she replaced her hood again, and they went on 
together. 

“ I thought thou wast ahind me, Rachael ? ” 

“ No.” 


90 


HARD TIMES. 


“ Early t’night, lass ? ” 

“ ’Times I’m a little early, Stephen ; ’times a little 
late. I’m never to be counted on, going home.” 

“ Nor going t’other way, neither, ’t seems to me, 
Rachael ? ” 

“ No, Stephen.” 

He looked at her with some disappointment in his face, 
but with a respectful and patient conviction that she must 
be right in whatever she did. The expression was not 
lost upon her ; she laid her hand lightly on his arm a 
moment as if to thank him for it. 

“We are such true friends, lad, and such old friends, 
and getting to be such old folk, now.” 

“ No, Rachael, thou’rt as young as ever thou 
wast.” 

“ One of us would be puzzled how to get old, Stephen, 
without t’other getting so too, both being alive,” she an- 
swered, laughing ; “ but, anyways, we’re such old friends, 
that t’ hide a word of honest truth fro’ one another would 
be a sin and a pity. ’Tis better not to walk too much 
together. ’Times, yes ! ’Twould be hard, indeed, if 
’twas not to be at all,” she said, with a cheerfulness she 
sought to communicate to him. 

“ ’Tis hard, anyways, Rachael.” 

“ Try to think not ; and ’twill seem better.” 

“I’ve tried a long time, and ’ta’n’t got better. But 
thou’rt right ; ’tmight mak fok talk, even of thee. Thou 
hast been that to me, Rachael, through so many years : 
thou hast done me so much good, and heartened of me 
in that cheering way, that thy word is a law to me. Ah, 
lass, and a bright good law ! Better than some real 
ones.” 

“Never fret about them, Stephen,” she answered 


HARD TIMES. 


91 


quickly, and not without an anxious glance at his face. 
“ Let the laws be.” 

“ Yes,” he said, with a slow nod or two. “ Let ’em 
be. Let everything be. Let all sorts alone. ’Tis a 
muddle, and that’s aw.” 

“ Always a muddle ? ” said Rachael, with another 
gentle touch upon his arm, as if to recall him out of the 
thoughtfulness, in which he was biting the long ends of 
his loose neckerchief as he walked along. The touch 
had its instantaneous effect. He let them fall, turned a 
smiling face upon her, and said, as he broke into a good- 
humored laugh, “ Ay, Rachael, lass, awlus a muddle. 
That’s where I stick. I come to the muddle many times 
and agen, and I never get beyond it.” 

They had walked some distance, and were near their 
own homes. The woman’s was the first reached. It 
was in one of the many small streets for which the favor- 
ite undertaker (who turned a handsome sum out of the 
one poor ghastly pomp of the neighborhood) kept a black 
ladder, in order that those who had done their daily 
groping up and down the narrow stairs might slide out 
of this working world by the windows. She stopped at 
the corner, and putting her hand in his, wished him good- 
night. 

“ Good-night, dear lass ; good-night ! ” 

She went, with her neat figure and her sober womanly 
step, down the dark street, and he stood looking after her 
until she turned into one of the small houses. There 
was not a flutter of her coarse shawl, perhaps, but had 
its interest in this man’s eyes ; not a tone of her voice 
but had its echo in his innermost heart. 

When she was lost to his view, he pursued his home- 
ward way, glancing up sometimes at the sky, where the 


92 


HARD TIMES. 


clouds were sailing fast and wildly. But, they were 
broken now, and the rain had ceased, and the moon 
shone — looking down the high chimneys of Coketown on 
the deep furnaces below, and casting Titanic shadows of 
the steam-engines at rest, upon the walls where they 
were lodged. The man seemed to have brightened witl 
the night, as he went on. 

His home, in such another street as the first, saving 
that it was narrower, was over a little shop. How it 
came to pass that any people found it worth their while 
to sell or buy the wretched little toys, mixed up in its 
window with cheap newspapers and pork (there was a 
leg to be raffled for to-morrow night), matters not here. 
He took his end of candle from a shelf, lighted it at an- 
other end of candle on the counter, without disturbing 
the mistress of the shop who was asleep in her little 
room, and, went up-stairs into his lodging. 

It was a room, not unacquainted with the black ladder 
under various tenants ; but as neat, at present, as such a 
room could be. A few books and waitings were on an 
old bureau in a corner, the furniture was decent and 
sufficient, and, though the atmosphere was tainted, the 
room was clean. 

Going to the hearth to set the candle down upon a 
round three-legged table standing there, he stumbled 
against something. As he recoiled, looking down at it, 
it raised itself up into the form of a woman in a sitting 
attitude. 

“ Heaven’s mercy, woman ! ” he cried, falling farther 
off from the figure. “ Hast thou come back again ! ” 

Such a woman ! A disabled, drunken creature, barely 
able to preserve her sitting posture by steadying herself 
with one begrimed hand on the floor, while the other was 


HARD TIMES. 


93 


so purposeless in trying to push away her tangled hair 
from her face, that it only blinded her the more with the 
dirt upon it. A creature so foul to look at, in her tatters, 
stains and splashes, but so much fouler than that in her 
moral infamy, that it was a shameful thing even to see 
her. 

After an impatient oath or two, and some stupid claw 
ing of herself with the hand not necessary to her sup- 
port, she got her hair away from her eyes sufficiently to 
obtain a sight of him. Then she sat swaying her body 
to and fro, and making gestures with her unnerved arm, 
which seemed intended as the accompaniment to a fit of 
laughter, though her face was stolid and drowsy. 

“ Eigh, lad ? What, yo’r there ? ” Some hoarse 
sounds meant for this, came mockingly out of her at 
last; and her head dropped forward on her breast. 

“ Back agen ? ” she screeched, after some minutes, as 
if he had that moment said it. “ Yes ! And back agen. 
Back agen ever and ever so often. Back ? Yes, back. 
Why not ? ” 

Boused by the unmeaning violence with which she 
cried it out, she scrambled up, and stood supporting her- 
self with her shoulders against the wall ; dangling in one 
hand by the string a dunghill-fragment of a bonnet, and 
trying to look scornfully at him. 

“ I’ll sell thee off again, and I’ll sell thee off again, and 
I’ll sell thee off a score of times ! ” she cried, with some- 
thing between a furious menace and an effort at a defiant 
dance. “ Come awa’ from th’ bed ! ” He was sitting on 
the side of it, with his face hidden in his hands. “ Come 
awa’ from ’t. ’Tis mine, and I’ve a right to ’t ! ” 

As she staggered to it, he avoided her with a shudder, 
and passed — his face still hidden — to the opposite end 


94 


HARD TIMES. 


of the room. She threw herself upon the bed heavily, 
and soon was snoring hard. He sunk into a chair, and 
moved but once all that night. It was to throw a cover- 
ing over her ; as if his hands were not enough to hide 
her even in the darkness. 


HARD TIMES. 


95 


CHAPTER XL 

NO WAY OUT. 

The Fair y palaces burst into illumination, before pale 
morning showed the monstrous serpents of smoke trailing 
themselves over Coketown. A clattering of clogs upon 
the pavement ; a rapid ringing of bells ; and all the mel- 
ancholy mad elephants, polished and oiled up for the 
day’s monotony, were at their heavy exercise again. 

Stephen bent over his loom, quiet, watchful, and 
steady. A special contrast, as every man was in the 
forest of looms where Stephen worked, to the crashing, 
smashing, tearing piece of mechanism at which he la- 
bored. Never fear, good people of an anxious turn of 
mind, that Art will consign Nature to oblivion. Set any- 
where, side by side, the work of God and the work of 
man ; and the former, even though it be a troop of 
Hands of very small account, will gain in dignity from 
the comparison. 

So many hundred Hands in this Mill ; so many hun- 
dred horse Steam Power. It is known, to the force of a 
single pound weight, what the engine will do ; but, not 
all the calculators of the National Debt can tell me the 
capacity for good or evil, for love or hatred, for patriotism 
or discontent, for the decomposition of virtue into vice, or 
the reverse, at any single moment in the soul of one of 
these its quiet servants, with the composed faces and the 


96 


HARD TIMES. 


regulated actions. There is no mystery in it ; there is 
an unfathomable mystery in the meanest of them, for- 
ever. — Supposing we were to reserve our arithmetic for 
material objects, and to govern these awful unknown 
quantities by other means ! 

The day grew strong, and showed itself outside, even 
against the flaming lights within. The lights were turned 
out, and the work went on. The rain fell, and the Smoke- 
serpents, submissive to the curse of all that tribe, trailed 
themselves upon the earth. In the waste-yard outside, 
the steam from the escape-pipe, the litter of barrels and 
old iron, the shining heaps of coals, the ashes every- 
where, were shrouded in a veil of mist and rain. 

The work went on, until the noon-hell rang. More 
clattering upon the pavements. The looms, and wheels, 
and Hands all out of gear for an hour. 

Stephen came out of the hot mill into the damp wind 
and cold wet streets, haggard and worn. He turned 
from his own class and his own quarter, taking nothing 
but a little bread as he walked along, towards the hill on 
which his principal employer lived, in a red house with 
black outside shutters, green inside blinds, a black street- 
door, up two white steps, Bound erby (in letters very 
like himself) upon a brazen plate, and a round brazen 
door-handle underneath it, like a brazen full-stop. 

Mr. Bounderby was at his lunch. So Stephen had 
expected. Would his servant say that one of the Hands 
begged leave to speak to him ? Message in return, 
requiring name of such Hand. Stephen Blackpool. 
There was nothing troublesome against Stephen Black- 
pool ; yes, he might come in. 

Stephen Blackpool in the parlor. Mr. Bounderby 
(whom he just knew by sight) at lunch on chon and 


HARD TIMES. 


97 


sherry. Mrs. Sparsit netting at the fireside, in a side- 
saddle attitude, with one foot in a cotton stirrup. It was 
a part, at once of Mrs. Sparsit’s dignity and service, not 
to lunch. She supervised the meal officially, but implied 
that in her own stately person she considered lunch a 
weakness. 

“Now, Stephen,” said Mr. Bounderby, “what’s the 
matter with you ? ” 

Stephen made a bow. Not a servile one — these 
Hands will never do that ! Lord bless you, sir, you’ll 
never catch them at that, if they have been with you 
twenty years ! — and, as a complimentary toilet for Mrs. 
Sparsit, tucked his neckerchief ends into his waistcoat. 

“ Now, you know,” said Mr. Bounderby, taking some 
sherry, “ we have never had any difficulty with you, and 
you have never been one of the unreasonable ones. You 
don’t expect to be set up in a coach and six, and to be 
fed on turtle-soup and venison, with a gold spoon, as a 
good many of ’em do ! ” Mr. Bounderby always repre- 
sented this to be the sole, immediate, and direct object 
of any Hand who was not entirely satisfied ; “ and there- 
fore I know already that you have not come here to 
make a complaint. Now, you know, I am certain of 
that, beforehand.” 

“ No, sir, sure I ha’ not coom for nowt o’ th’ kind.” 

Mr. Bounderby seemed agreeably surprised, notwith- 
standing his previous strong conviction. “ Very well,” 
he returned. “ You’re a steady Hand, and I w r as not 
mistaken. Now, let me hear what it’s all about. As it’s 
not that, let me hear what it is. What have you got to 
say ? Out with it, lad ! ” 

Stephen happened to glance towards Mrs. Sparsit. “ 1 

can go, Mr Bounderby, if you wish it,” said that self- 

VOL. I. 7 


98 


HARD TIMES. 


sacrificing lady, making a feint of taking her foot out of 
the stirrup. 

Mr. Bounderby stayed her, by holding a mouthful of 
chop in suspension before swallowing it, and putting out 
his left hand. Then, withdrawing his hand and swallow- 
ing his mouthful of chop, he said to Stephen, — 

“Now you know, this good lady is a born lady, a high 
lady. You are not to suppose because she keeps my 
house for me, that she hasn’t been very high up the tree 
— ah, up at the top of the tree ! Now, if you have got 
anything to say that can’t be said before a born lady, this 
lady will leave the room. If what you have got to say 
can be said before a born lady, this lady will stay where 
she is.” 

“ Sir, I hope I never had nowt to say, not fitten for 
a born lady to hear, sin’* I were a born mysen’,” was the 
reply, accompanied with a slight flush. 

“ Very well,” said Mr. Bounderby, pushing away his 
plate, and leaning back. “ Fire away ! ” 

“ I ha’ coom,” Stephen began, raising his eyes from 
the floor, after a moment’s consideration, “ to ask yo yor 
advice. I need’t overmuch. I were married on Eas’r 
Monday nineteen year sin’, long and dree. She were a 
young lass — pretty enow — wi’ good accounts of her- 
seln. Well ! She went bad — soon. Not along of me. 
Gonnows I were not a unkind husband to her.” 

“ I have heard all this before,” said Mr. Bounderby. 
“ She took to drinking, left off working, sold the furniture, 
pawned the clothes, and played old Gooseberry.” 

“ I were patient wi’ her.” 

(“ The more fool you, I think,” said Mr. Bounderby, 
in confidence to his wine-glass.; 

“ I were very patient wi’ her. I tried to wean her 


HARD TIMES. 


99 


fra’t ower and ower agen. I tried this, I tried that, 
I tried t’other. I ha’ gone home, many’s the time, 
and found all vanished as I had in the world, and 
her without a sense left to bless herseln lying on bare 
ground. I ha’ dun’t not once, not twice — twenty 
time ! ” 

Every line in his face deepened as he said it, and put 
in its affecting evidence of the suffering he had under- 
gone. 

“ From bad to worse, from worse to worsen. She left 
me. She disgraced herseln everyways, bitter and bad. 
She coom back, she coom back, she coom back. What 
could I do t’ hinder her ? I ha’ walked the streets nights 
long, ere ever I’d go home. I ha’ gone t’ th’ brigg, 
minded to fling myseln ower, and ha’ no more on’t. I 
ha’ bore that much, that I were owd when I were 
young.” 

Mrs. Sparsit, easily ambling along with her netting- 
needles, raised the Coriolanian eyebrows and shook her 
head, as much as to say, “ The great know trouble as 
well as the small. Please to turn your humble eye in 
My direction.” 

“ I ha’ paid her to keep awa’ fra’ me. These five 
year I ha’ paid her. I ha’ gotten decent fewtrils about 
me agen. I ha’ lived hard and sad, but not ashamed 
and fearfo’ a’ the minnits o’ my life. Last night, I went 
home. There she lay upon my har-stone ! There she 
is ! ” 

In the strength of his misfortune, and the energy of 
his distress, he fired for the moment like a proud man. 
In another moment, he stood as he had stood all the time 
* — his usual stoop upon him ; his pondering face addressed 
to Mr. Bounderby, with a curious expression on it, half 


100 


HARD TIMES. 


shrewd, half perplexed, as if his mind were set upon un- 
ravelling something very difficult ; his hat held tight in 
his left hand, which rested on his hip ; his right arm, 
with a rugged propriety and force of action, very ear- 
nestly emphasizing what he said : not least so when it 
always paused, a little bent, but not withdrawn, as he 
paused. 

“ I was acquainted with all this, you know,” said Mr. 
Bounderby, “ except the last clause, long ago. It’s a bad 
job ; that’s what it is. You had better have been satis- 
fied as you were, and not have got married. However, 
it’s too late to say that.” 

“ Was it an unequal marriage, sir, in point of years ? ” 
asked Mrs. Sparsit. 

“You hear what this lady asks. Was it an unequal 
marriage in point of years, this unlucky job of yours ? ” 
said Mr. Bounderby. 

“ Not e’en so. I were one-and-twenty myseln ; she 
were twenty nighbut.” 

“ Indeed, sir ? ” said Mrs. Sparsit to her Chief, with 
great placidity. “ I inferred, from its being so miserable 
a marriage, that it was probably an unequal one in point 
of years.” 

Mr. Bounderby looked very hard at the good lady in a 
sidelong way that had an odd sheepishness about it. He * 
fortified himself with a little more sherry. 

“ Well ? Why don’t you go on ? ” he then asked, turn- 
ing rather irritably on Stephen Blackpool. 

“ I ha’ coom to ask yo, sir, how I am to be riddled o’ 
this woman.” Stephen infused a yet deeper gravity into 
the mixed expression of his attentive face. Mrs. Sparsit 
uttered a gentle ejaculation, as having received a moral 
shock. 


HARD TIMES. 


101 


“ What do you mean ? ” said Bounderby, getting up to 
Lean his back against the chimney-piece. “ What are you 
talking about ? You took her for better for worse.” 

“ I mun be ridden o’ her. I cannot bear ’t nommore. 
I ha’ lived under ’t so long, for that I ha’ had’n the pity 
and comforting words o’ th’ best lass living or dead. 
Haply, but for her, I should ha’ gone hottering mad.” 

<k He wishes to be free, to marry the female of whom 
he speaks, I fear, sir,” observed Mrs. Sparsit in an un- 
dertone, and much dejected by the immorality of the 
people. 

“ I do. The lady says what’s right. I do. I were a- 
coming to’t. I ha’ read i’ tli’ papers that great fok (fair 
faw ’em a’ ! I wishes ’em no hurt !) are not bonded to- 
gether for better for worse so fast, but that they can be 
set free fro’ their misfortnet marriages, an’ marry ower 
agen. When they dunnot agree, for that their tempers 
is ill-sorted, they has rooms o’ one kind an’ another in 
their houses, above a bit, and they can live asunders. 
We fok ha’ only one room, an’ we can’t. When that 
won’t do, they ha’ gowd an’ other cash, an’ they can say 
6 This for yo, an’ that for me,’ an’ they can go their sepa- 
rate ways. We can’t. Spite o’ all that, they can be set 
free for smaller wrongs than mine. So, I mun be ridden 
o’ this woman, and I want t’know how ? ” 

“ No how,” returned Mr. Bounderby. 

“ If I do her any hurt, sir, there’s a law to punish 
me ? ” 

“ Of course there is.” 

“ If I flee from her, there’s a law to punish me ? ” 

66 Of course there is.” 

/ 

“ If I marry t’oother dear lass, there’s a law to punish 


102 


HARD TIMES. 


“ Of course there is.” 

“ If I was to live wi’ her an’ not marry her — saying 
such a thing could be, which it never could or would, an’ 
her so good — there’s a law to punish me, in every inno- 
cent child belonging to me ? ” 

“ Of course there is.” 

u Now, a’ God’s name,” said Stephen Blackpool, u show 
me the law to help me ! ” 

“ Hem ! There’s a sanctity in this relation of life,” 
said Mr. Bounderby, “ and — and — it must be kept 
up.” 

“ No, no, dunnot say that, sir. ’Ta’n’t kep’ up that 
way. Not that way. ’Tis kep* down that way. I'm a 
weaver, I were in a fact’ry when a cliilt, but I ha’ gotten 
een to see wi’ and eern to year wi’. I read in th’ papers 
every ’Sizes, every Sessions — and you read too — I 
know it ! — with dismay — how tli’ supposed unpossi- 
bility o’ ever getting unchained from one another, at any 
price, on any terms, brings blood upon this land, and 
brings many common married fok to battle, murder, and 
sudden death. Let us ha’ this, right understood. Mine’s 
a grievous case, an’ I want — if yo will be so good — 
t’know the law that helps me.” 

“ Now, I tell you what ! ” said Mr. Bounderby, putting 
his hands in his pockets. “ There is such a law.” 

Stephen, subsiding into his quiet manner, and never 
wandering in his attention, gave a nod. 

“ But it’s not for you at all. It costs money. It costs 
a mint of money.” 

How much might that be ? Stephen calmly asked. 

“ Why, you’d have to go to Doctors’ Commons with a 
suit, and you’d have to go to a court of Common Law 
with a suit, and you’d have to go to the House of Lords 


HARD TIMES. 


103 


with a suit, and you’d have to get an Act of Parliamen. 
to enable you to marry again, and it would cost you (if 
it was a case of very plain-sailing), I suppose from a 
thousand to fifteen hundred pound,” said Mr. Bounderby. 
“ Perhaps twice the money.” 

“ There’s no other law ? ” 

“ Certainly not.” 

“ Why then, sir,” said Stephen, turning white, and 
motioning with that right hand of his, as if he gave 
everything to the four winds, “ 9 tis a muddle. ’Tis just 
a muddle a’toogether, an’ the sooner I am dead, the bet- 
ter.” 

(Mrs. Sparsit again dejected by the impiety of the 
people.) 

“ Pooh, pooh ! Don’t you talk nonsense, my good fel- 
low,” said Mr. Bounderby, “ about things you don’t un- 
derstand ; and don’t you call the Institutions of your 
country a muddle, or you’ll get yourself into a real mud- 
dle one of these fine mornings. The institutions of your 
country are not your piece-work, and the only thing you 
have got to do, is, to mind .your piece-work. You didn’t 
take your wife for fast and for loose ; but for better for 
worse. If she has turned out worse — why, all we have 
got to say is, she might have turned out better.” 

“ ’Tis a muddle,” said Stephen, shaking his head as he 
moved to the door. “ ’Tis a’ a muddle ! ” 

“ Now, I’ll tell you what ! ” Mr. Bounderby resumed, 
as a valedictory address. “ With what I shall call your 
unhallowed opinions, you have been quite shocking this 
lady : who, as I have already told you, is a born lady, 
and who, as I have not already told you, has had her own 
marriage misfortunes to the tune of tens of thousands of 
pounds — tens of Thou-sands ol Pounds ! ” (he repeated 


HARD TIMES. 


104 s 

it with great relish). “ Now, you have always been a 
steady Hand hitherto ; but my opinion is, and so I tell 
you plainly, that you are turning into the wrong road. 
You have been listening to some mischievous stranger or 
other — they’re always about — and the best thing you 
can do is, to come out of that. Now you know ; ” here 
his countenance expressed marvellous acuteness ; “ I 
can see as far into a grindstone as another man ; farther 
than a good many, perhaps, because I had my nose well 
kept to it when I was young. I see traces of the turtle- 
soup, and venison, and gold spoon in this. Y r es, I do ! ” 
cried Mr. Bounderby, shaking his head with obstinate 
cunning. “ By the Lord Harry, I do ! ” 

With a very different shake of the head and deep sigh, 
Stephen said, “ Thank you, sir ; I wish you good-day.” 
So he left Mr. Bounderby swelling at his own portrait 
on the wall, as if he were going to explode himself into 
it ; and Mrs. Sparsit still ambling on with her foot in her 
stirrup, looking quite cast down by the popular vices. 


HARD TIMES. 


105 


CHAPTER XII. 

THE OLD WOMAN. 

Old Stephen descended the two white steps, shutting 
the black door with the brazen door-plate, by the aid of 
the brazen full-stop, to which he gave a parting polish 
with the sleeve of his coat, observing that his hot hand 
clouded it. He crossed the street with his eyes bent 
upGn the ground, and thus was walking sorrowfully away, 
when he felt a touch upon his arm. 

It was not the touch he needed most at such a moment 
— the touch that could calm the wild waters of his soul, 
as the uplifted hand of the sublimest love and patience 
could abate the raging of the sea — yet it was a woman’s 
hand too. It was an old woman, tall and shapely still, 
though withered by time, on whom his eyes fell when he 
stopped and turned. She was very cleanly and plainly 
dressed, had country mud upon her shoes, and was newly 
come from a journey. The flutter of her manner, in the 
unwonted noise of the streets ; the spare shawl, carried 
unfolded on her arm ; the heavy umbrella, and little 
basket ; the loose long-fingered gloves, to which her hands 
were unused ; all bespoke an old woman from the coun- 
try, in her plain holiday clothes, come into Coketown on 
an expedition of rare occurrence. Remarking this at a 
glance, with the quick observation of his class, Stephen 
Blackpool bent his attentive face — his face, which, like 


106 


HARD TIMES. 


the faces of many of his order, by dint of long working 
with eyes and hands in the midst of a prodigious noise, 
had acquired the concentrated look with which we are 
familiar in the countenances of the deaf — the better to 
hear what she asked him. 

“ Pray, sir,” said the old woman, “ didn’t I see you 
come out of that gentleman’s house ? ” pointing back to 
Mr. Bounderby’s. “ I believe it was you, unless I have 
had the bad luck to mistake the person in following ? ” 

“ Yes, missus,” returned Stephen, “ it were me.” 

“ Have you — you’ll excuse an old woman’s curiosity 
— have you seen the gentleman ? ” 

“ Yes, missus.” 

“ And how did he look, sir ? Was he portly, bold, out- 
spoken, and hearty ? ” As she straightened her own 
figure, and held up her head in adapting her action to 
her words, the idea crossed Stephen that he had seen 
this old woman before, and had not quite liked her. 

“ O yes,” he returned, observing her more attentively, 
“ he were all that.” 

“ And healthy,” said the old woman, “ as the fresh 
wind ? ” 

“ Yes,” returned Stephen. “ He were ett’n and drink- 
ing — as large and as loud as a Hummobee.” 

“ Thank you ! ” said the old woman with infinite con- 
tent. “ Thank you ! ” 

He certainly never had seen this old woman before 
Yet there was a vague remembrance in his mind, as if 
he had more than once dreamed of some old woman like 
her. 

She walked along at his side, and, gently accommodat- 
ing himself to her humor, he said Coketown was a busy 
place, was it not ? To which she answered “ Eigh sure ! 


HARD TIMES. 


107 


Dreadful busy ! ” Then he said, she came from the 
country, he saw ? To which she answered in the affirm- 
ative. 

“ By Parliamentary, this morning. I came forty mile 
by Parliamentary this morning, and I’m going back the 
game forty mile this afternoon. I walked nine mile to 
the station this morning, and if I find nobody on the 
road to give me a lift, I shall walk the nine mile back 
to-night. That’s pretty well, sir, at my age ! ” said the 
chatty old woman, her eye brightening with exultation. 

“ ’Deed ’tis. Don’t do’t too often, missus.” 

“ No, no. Once a year,” she answered, shaking her 
head. “I spend my savings so, once every year. I 
come regular, to tramp about the streets, and see the 
gentlemen.” 

“ Only to see ’em ? ” returned Stephen. 

“ That’s enough for me,” she replied, with great ear- 
nestness and interest of manner. “ I ask no more ! 1 

have been standing about, on this side of the way, to see 
that gentleman,” turning her head back towards Mr. 
Bounderby’s again, “ come out. But, he’s late this year, 
and I have not seen him. You came out, instead. Now, 
if I am obliged to go back without a glimpse of him — 
I only want a glimpse — well ! I have seen you, and 
you have seen him, and I must make that do.” Saying 
this, she looked at Stephen as if to fix his features in her 
mind, and her eye was not so bright as it had been. 

With a large allowance for difference of tastes, and 
with all submission to the patricians of Coketown, this 
seemed so extraordinary a source of interest to take so 
much trouble about, that it perplexed him. But they 
were passing the church now, and as his eye caught the 
ffock, he quickened his pace. 


108 


HARD TIMES. 


He was going to his work ? the old woman said, quick- 
ening hers, too, quite easily. Yes, time was nearly out 
On his telling her where he worked, the old woman be- 
came a more singular old woman than before. 

“ A’n’t you happy ? ” she asked him. 

“ Why — there’s awmost nobbody but has their troubles, 
missus.” He answered evasively, because the old woman 
appeared to take it for granted that he would be very 
happy indeed, and he had not the heart to disappoint her. 
He knew that there was trouble enough in the world ; 
and if the old woman had lived so long, and could count 
upon his having so little, why so much the better for her, 
and none the worse for him. 

“ Ay, ay ! You have your troubles at home, you 
mean ? ” she said. 

“ Times. Just now and then,” he answered slightly. 

“ But, working under such a gentleman, they don’t 
follow you to the Factory?” 

No, no ; they didn’t follow him there, said Stephen. 
All correct there. Everything accordant there. (He 
did not go so far as to say, for her pleasure, that there 
was a sort of Divine Bight there ; hut, I have heard 
claims almost as magnificent of late years.) 

They were now in the black by-road near the place, 
and the Hands were crowding in. The bell was ringing, 
and the Serpent was a Serpent of many coils, and the 
Elephant was getting ready. The strange old woman 
was delighted with the very bell. It was the beauti- 
fullest bell she had ever heard, she said, and sounded 
grand ! 

She asked him, when he stopped good-naturedly to 
shake hands with her before going in, how long he had 
worked there ? 


HARD TIMES. 


109 


“ A dozen year,” he told her. 

u I must kiss the hand,” said she, “ that has worked in 
this fine factory for a dozen year ! ” And she lifted it, 
though he would have prevented her, and put it to her 
lips. What harmony, besides her age and her simplicity, 
surrounded her, he did not know, but even in this fantas- 
tic action there was a something neither out of time nor 
place : a something which it seemed as if nobody else 
could have made as serious, or done with such a natural 
and touching air. 

He had been at his loom full half an hour, thinking 
about this old woman, when, having occasion to move 
round the loom for its adjustment, he glanced through a 
window which was in his corner, and saw her still look- 
ing up at the pile of building, lost in admiration. Heed- 
less of the smoke and mud and wet, and of her two long 
journeys, she was gazing at it, as if the heavy thrum 
that issued from its many stories were proud music to 
her. 

She was gone by and by, and the day went after her, 
and the lights sprung up again, and the Express whirled 
in full sight of the Fairy Palace over the arches near : 
little felt amid the jarring of the machinery, and scarcely 
heard above its crash and rattle. Long before then his 
thoughts had gone back to the dreary room above the 
little shop, and to the shameful figure heavy on the bed, 
but heavier on his heart. 

Machinery slackened ; throbbing feebly like a fainting 
pulse ; stopped. The bell again ; the glare of light and 
heat dispelled ; the factories, looming heavy in the black 
wet night — their tall chimneys rising up into the air 
like competing Towers of Babel. 

He had spoken to Raphael only last night, it was true, 


110 


HARD TIMES. 


and had walked with her a little way ; but he had his 
new misfortune on him in which no one else could give 
him a moment’s relief, and, for the sake of it, and because 
he knew himself to want that softening of his anger 
which no voice but hers could effect, he felt he might so 
far disregard what she had said as to wait for her again 
He waited, but she had eluded him. She was gone. Ou 
no 3ther night in the year could he so ill have spared her 
patient face. 

Oh ! Better to have no home in which to lay his head, 
than to have a home and dread to go to it, through such 
a cause. He ate and drank, for he was exhausted — but 
he little knew or cared what ; and he wandered about in 
the chill rain, thinking and thinking, and brooding and 
brooding. 

No word of a new marriage had ever passed between 
them ; but Rachael had taken great pity on him years 
ago, and to her alone he had opened his closed heart all 
this time, on the subject of his miseries ; and he knew 
very well that if he were free to ask her, she would take 
him. He thought of the home he might at that moment 
have been seeking with pleasure and pride : of the dif- 
ferent man he might have been that night ; of the light- 
ness then in his now heavy-laden breast ; of the then 
restored honor, self-respect, and tranquillity all torn to 
pieces. He thought of the waste of the best part of his 
life, of the change it made in his character for the worse 
every day, of the dreadful nature of his existence, bound 
hand and foot, to a dead woman, and tormented by a de- 
mon in her shape. He thought of Rachael, how young 
when they were first brought together in these circum- 
stances, how mature now, how soon to grow old. He 
thought of the number of girls and women she had seen 


HARD TIMES. 


Ill 


marry, how many homes with children in them she had 
seen grow up around her, how she had contentedly pur- 
sued her own lone quiet path — for him — and how he 
had sometimes seen a shade of melancholy on her blessed 
face, that smote him with remorse and despair. He set 
the picture of her up, beside the infamous image of last 
night ; and thought, Could it be, that the whole earthly 
course of one so gentle, good, and self-denying, was sub- 
jugate to such a wretch as that ! 

Filled with these thoughts — so filled that he had an 
unwholesome sense of growing larger, of being placed 
in some new and diseased relation towards the objects 
among which he passed, of seeing the iris round every 
misty light turn red — he went home for shelter. 


112 


HARD TIMES. 


CHAPTER XIH. 

RACHAEL. 

A candle faintly burned in the window, to which the 
black ladder had often been raised for the sliding away 
of all that was most precious in this world to a striving 
wife and a brood of hungry babies ; and Stephen added 
to his other thoughts the stern reflection, that of all the 
casualties of this existence upon earth, not one was dealt 
out with so unequal a hand as Death. The inequality 
of Birth was nothing to it. For, say that the child of a 
King and the child of a Weaver were born to-night 
in the same moment, what was that disparity, to the 
death of any human creature who was serviceable to, 
or beloved by, another, while this abandoned woman 
lived on ! 

From the outside of his home he gloomily passed to 
the inside, with suspended breath and with a slow foot- 
step. He went up to his door, opened it, and so into the 
room. 

Quiet and peace were there. Rachael was there, sit- 
ting by the bed. 

She turned her head, and the light of her face shone 
in upon the midnight of his mind. She sat by the bed, 
watching and tending his wife. That is to say, he saw 
that some one lay there, and he knew too well it must 
be she ; but Rachael’s hands had put a curtain up, sc 


HARD TIMES. 


113 


that she was screened from his eyes. Her disgraceful 
garments were removed, and some of Rachael’s were in 
the room. Everything was in its place and order as he 
had always kept it ; the little fire was newly trimmed, 
and the hearth was freshly swept. It appeared to him 
that he saw all this in Rachael’s face, and looked at noth- 
ing besides. While looking at it, it was shut out from 
his view by the softened tears that filled his eyes ; but 
not before he had seen how earnestly she looked at him, 
and how her own eyes were filled too. 

She turned again towards the bed, and satisfying 
herself that all was quiet there, spoke in a low, calm, 
cheerful voice. 

“ I am glad you have come at last, Stephen. You are 
very late.” 

u I ha’ been walking up an’ down.” 

“ I thought so. But ’tis too bad a night for that. The 
rain falls very heavy, and the wind has risen.” 

The wind ? True. It was blowing hard. Hark to 
the thundering in the chimney, and the surging noise ! 
To have been out in such a wind, and not to have known 
it was blowing ! 

“ I have been here once before, to-day, Stephen. 
Landlady came round for me at dinner-time. There 
was some one here that needed looking to, she said. 
And ’deed she was right. All wandering and lost, 
Stephen. Wounded too, and bruised.” 

He slowly moved to a chair and sat down, drooping 
his head before her. 

u I came to do what little I could, Stephen ; first, for 
that she worked with me when we were girls both, and 
for that you courted her and married her when I was 
her friend ” — 


VOL. i. 


8 


114 


HARD TIMES. 


He laid his fun owed forehead on his hand, with a low 
groan. 

“ And next, for that I know your heart, and am right 
sure and certain that ’tis far too merciful to let her die, 
or even so much as suffer, for want of aid. Thou know- 
est who said, 6 Let him who is without sin among you 
cast the first stone at her ! ’ There have been plenty to 
do that. Thou art not the man to cast the last stone, 
Stephen, when she is brought so low.” 

66 O Rachael, Rachael ! ” 

“ Thou hast been a cruel sufferer, Heaven reward 
thee ! 99 she said, in compassionate accents. “ I am thy 
poor friend, with all my heart and mind.” 

The wounds of which she had spoken seemed to be 
about the neck of the self-made outcast. She dressed 
them now, still without showing her. She steeped a 
piece of linen in a basin, into which she poured some 
liquid from a bottle, and laid it with a gentle hand upon 
the sore. The three-legged table had been drawn close 
to the bedside, and on it there were two bottles. This 
was one. 

It was not so far off, but that Stephen, following her 
hands with his eyes, could read what was printed on it, 
in large letters. He turned of a deadly hue, and a sud- 
den horror seemed to fall upon him. 

“ I will stay here, Stephen,” said Rachael, quietly 
resuming her seat, u till the bells go Three. ’Tis to be 
done again at three, and then she may be left till 
morning.” 

“ But thy rest agen to-morrow’s work, my dear.” 

“ I slept sound last night. I can wake many nights, 
when I am put to it. ’Tis thou who art in need of rest 
— so white and tired. Try to sleep in the chair there, 


HARD TIMES. 


115 


while I watch. Thou hadst no sleep last night, I can 
well believe. To-morrow’s work is far harder for thee 
than for me.” 

He heard the thundering and surging out of doors, and 
it seemed to him as if his late angry mood were going 
about trying to get at him. She had cast it out ; she 
would keep it out ; he trusted to her, to defend him from 
himself. 

“ She don’t know me, Stephen ; she just drowsily mut- 
ters and stares. I have spoken to her times and again, 
but she don’t notice ! ’Tis as well so. When she comes 
to her right mind once more, I shall have done what I 
can, and she never the wiser.” 

“ How long, Rachael, is’t looked for, that she’ll be 
so ? ” 

“ Doctor said she would haply come to her mind to- 
morrow.” 

His eyes again fell on the bottle, and a tremble passed 
over him, causing him to shiver in every limb. She 
thought he was chilled with the wet. “ No,” he said ; 
“ it was not that. He had had a fright.” 

u A fright ? ” 

“ Ay, ay ! coming in. When I were walking. When 
I were thinking. When I ” — It seized him again ; 
and he stood up, holding by the mantel-shelf, as he 
pressed his dank cold hair down with a hand that shook 
as if it were palsied. 

“ Stephen ! ” 

She was coming to him, but he stretc % °d out his arm 
to stop her. 

“ No ! Don’t please ; don’t ! Let me •»ee f e setten 
by the bed. Let me see thee, a’ so goc a, ar o forgiv- 
ing. Let me see thee as I see thee wh -oom in. 


116 


HAED TIMES. 


I can never see thee better than so. Never, never, 
never ! ” 

He had a violent fit of trembling, and then sunk into 
his chair. After a time he controlled himself, and, rest- 
ing with an elbow on one knee, and his head upon that 
hand, could look towards Rachael. Seen across the dim 
candle with his moistened eyes, she looked as if she had 
a glory shining round her head. Pie could have believed 
she had. He did believe it, as the noise without shook 
the window, rattled at the door below, and went about 
the house clamoring and lamenting. 

“ When she gets better, Stephen, ’tis to be hoped she’ll 
leave thee to thyself again, and do thee no more hurt. 
Anyways we will hope so now. And now I shall keep 
silence, for I want thee to sleep.” 

Pie closed his eyes, more to please her than to rest his 
weary head ; but, by slow degrees as he listened to the 
great noise of the wind, he ceased to hear it, or it 
changed into the working of his loom, or even into the 
voices of the day (his own included) saying what had 
been really said. Even this imperfect consciousness 
faded away at last, and he dreamed a long, troubled 
dream. 

He t ic light that he, and some one on whom his heart 
nr: \ long been set — but she was not Rachael, and that 

j/ isec; him, even in the midst of his imaginary happi- 
ness — stood in the church being married. While the 
ceremony was performing, and while he recognized 
amt g the witnesses some whom he knew to be living, 
and many whom he knew to be dead, darkness came on, 
succeeded by the-: ining of a tremendous light. It broke 

from one lire A die table of commandments at the altar, 
and illunmuih? ! a*, building with the words. They were 







HARD TIMES. 


117 


sounded through the church too, as if there were voices 
in the fiery letters. Upon this, the whole appearance 
before him and around him changed, and nothing was 
left as it had been, but himself and the clergyman. 
They stood in the daylight before a crowd so vast, that 
if all the people in the world could have been brougti 
together into one space, they could not have looked, he 
thought, more numerous ; and they all abhorred him, 
and there was not one pitying or friendly eye among the 
millions that were fastened on his face. He stood on a 
raised stage, under his own loom ; and, looking up at the 
shape the loom took, and hearing the burial service dis- 
tinctly read, he knew that he was there to suffer death. 
In an instant what he stood on fell below him, and he 
was gone. 

Out of what mystery he came back to his usual life, 
and to places that he knew, he was unable to consider ; 
but he was back in those places by some means, and with 
this condemnation upon him, that he was never, in this 
world or the next, through all the unimaginable ages of 
eternity, to look on Rachael’s face or hear her voice. 
Wandering to and fro, unceasingly, without hope, and in 
search of he knew not what (he only knew that he was 
doomed to seek it), he was the subject of a nameless, 
horrible dread, a mortal fear of one particular shape 
which everything took. Whatsoever he looked at, grew 
into that form sooner or later. The object of his miser- 
able existence was to prevent its recognition by any one 
among the various people he encountered. Hopeless 
labor ! If he led them out of rooms where it was, if he 
shut up drawers and closets where it stood, if he drew 
the curious from places where he knew it to be secreted, 
and got them out into the streets, the very chimneys of 


118 


HARD TIMES. 


the mills assumed that shape, and round them was the 
printed word. 

The wind was blowing again, the rain was beating 
on the housetops, and the larger spaces through which 
he had strayed contracted to the four walls of his 
room. Saving that the fire had died out, it was as 
his eyes had closed upon it. Rachael seemed to have 
fallen into a doze, in the chair by the bed. She sat 
wrapped in her shawl, perfectly still. The table stood 
in the same place, close by the bedside, and on it, in its 
real proportions and appearance, was the shape so often 
repeated. 

He thought he saw the curtain move. He looked 
again, and he was sure it moved. He saw a hand come 
forth, and grope about a little. Then the curtain moved 
more perceptibly, and the woman in the bed put it back, 
and sat up. 

With her woful eyes, so haggard and wild, so heavy 
and large, she looked all round the room, and passed the 
corner where he slept in his chair. Her eyes returned 
to that corner, and she put her hand over them as a shade, 
while she looked into it. Again they went all round the 
room, scarcely heeding Rachael if at all, and returned to 
that corner. He thought, as she once more shaded them 
— not so much looking at him, as looking for him with a 
brutish instinct that he was there — that no single trace 
was left in those debauched features, or in the mind that 
went along with them, of the woman he had married 
eighteen years before. But that he had seen her come 
to this by inches, he never could have believed her to be 
the same. 

All this time, as if a spell were on him, he was motion- 
less and powerless, except to watch her. 


t 


HARD TIMES. 119 

Stupidly dozing, or communing with her incapable, 
self about nothing, she sat for a little while with her 
hands at her ears, and her head resting on them. Pres- 
ently, she resumed her staring round the room. And 
now, for the first time, her eyes stopped at the table with 
the bottles on it. 

Straightway she turned her eyes back to his corner, 
with the defiance of last night, and, moving very cau- 
tiously and softly, stretched out her greedy hand. She 
drew a mug into the bed, and sat for a while considering 
which of the two bottles she should choose. Finally, she 
laid her insensate grasp upon the bottle that had swift 
and certain death in it, and, before his eyes, pulled out 
the cork with her teeth. 

Dream or reality, he had no voice, nor had he power 
to stir. If this be real, and her allotted time be not yet 
come, wake, Rachael, wake ! 

She thought of that, too. She looked at Rachael, and 
very slowly, very cautiously, poured out the contents. 
The draught was at her lips. A moment and she would 
be past all help, let the whole world wake and come about 
her with its utmost power. But, in that moment Rachael 
started up with a suppressed cry. The creature strug- 
gled, struck her, seized her by the hair ; but Rachael had 
the cup. 

Stephen broke out of his chair. 66 Rachael, am I 
wakin’ or dreamin’ this dreadfo’ night ! ” 

“ ’Tis all well, Stephen. I have been asleep myself. 
Tis near three. Hush ! I hear the bells.” 

The wind brought the sounds of the church clock to 
the window. They listened, and it struck three. Stephen 
looked at her, saw how pale she was, noted the disorder 
»f her hair, and the red marks of fingers on her fore- 


120 


HARD TIMES. 


head, and felt assured that his senses of sight and hear* 
ing had been awake. She held the cup in her hand 
even now. 

“I thought it must be near three,” she said, calmly 
pouring from the cup into the basin, and steeping the 
linen as before. “ I am thankful I stayed ! ’Tis done 
now, when I have put this on. There ! And now 
she’s quiet again. The few drops in the basin I’ll 
pour away, for ’tis bad stuff to leave about, though ever 
so little of it.” As she spoke, she drained the basin 
into the ashes of the fire, and broke the bottle on the 
hearth. 

She had nothing to do, then, but to cover herself with 
her shawl before going out into the wind and rain. 

“ Thou’lt let me walk wi’ thee at this hour, Rachael ? ” 

“ No, Stephen. ’Tis but a minute and I’m home.” 

“ Thou’rt not fearfo’ ; ” he said it in a low voice, as 
they went out at the door ; u to leave me alone wi’ 
her ! ” 

As she looked at him, saying “ Stephen ? ” he went 
down on his knee before her, on the poor, mean stairs, 
and put an end of her shawl to his lips. 

“ Thou art an Angel. Bless thee, bless thee ! ” 

“ I am, as I have told thee, Stephen, thy poor friend. 
Angels are not like me. Between them, and a working 
woman fu’ of faults, there is a deep gulf set. My little 
sister is among them, but she is changed.” 

She raised her eyes for a moment as she said the 
words ; and then they fell again, in all their gentleness 
and mildness, on his face. 

“ Thou changest me from bad to good. Thou mak’st 
me humbly wishfo’ to be more like thee, and fearfo’ to 
lose thee when this life is ower, an’ a’ the muddle cleared 


HARD TIMES. 


121 


awa’. Thou’rt an Angel ; it may be, thou hast saved my 
soul alive ! ” 

She looked at him, on his knee at her feet, with her 
shawl still in his hand, and the reproof on her lips died 
away when she saw the working of his face. 

“I coom home desp’rate. I coom home wi’out a 
hope, and mad wi’ thinking that when I said a word o’ 
complaint I was reckoned a onreasonable Hand. I told 
thee I had had a fright. It were the Poison-bottle on 
table. I never hurt a livin’ creetur ; but happenin’ so 
suddenly upon’t, I thowt, ‘ How can 1 say what I might 
ha’ done to myseln, or her, or both ! ’ ” 

She put her two hands on his mouth, with a face of 
terror, to stop him from saying more. He caught them 
in his unoccupied hand, and holding them, and still clasp- 
ing the border of her shawl, said, hurriedly, — 

“ But I see thee, Rachael, setten by the bed. I ha’ 
seen thee, aw this night. In my troublous sleep I ha’ 
known thee still to be there. Evermore I will see thee 
there. I nevermore will see her or think o’ her, but 
thou shalt be beside her. I nevermore will see or think 
o’ anything that angers me, but thou, so much better 
than me, shalt be by th’ side on’t. And so I will try t’ 
look t’ th’ time, and so I will try t’ trust t’ th’ time, 
when thou and me at last shall walk together far awa’, 
beyond the deep gulf, in th’ country where thy little 
sister is.” 

He kissed the border of her shawl again, and let her 
go. She bade him good-night in a broken voice, and 
went out into the street. 

The wind blew from the quarter where the day would 
soon appear, and still blew strongly. It had cleared the 
sky before it, and the rain had spent itself or travelled 


122 


HARD TIMES. 


elsewhere, and the stars were bright. He stood bare- 
headed in the road, watching her quick disappearance. 
As the shining stars were to the heavy candle in the 
window, so was Rachael, in the rugged fancy of this man, 
to the common experiences of his life. 


HARD TIMES. 


123 


CHAPTER XIV 

THE GREAT MANUFACTURER. 

Time went on in Coketown like its own machinery 
so much material wrought up, so much fuel consumed, so 
many powers worn out, so much money made. But, less 
inexorable than iron, steel, and brass, it brought its vary- 
ing seasons even into that wilderness of smoke and brick, 
and made the only stand that ever was made in the place 
against its direful uniformity. 

“ Louisa is becoming,’’ said Mr. Gradgrind, “ almost 
a young woman.” 

Time, with his innumerable horse-power, worked away, 
not minding what anybody said, and presently turned out 
young Thomas a foot taller than when his father had last 
taken particular notice of him. 

“ Thomas is becoming,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “ almost 
a young man.” 

Time passed Thomas on in the mill, while his father 
was thinking about it, and there he stood in a long-tailed 
coat and a stiff shirt-collar. 

“ Really,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “ the period has arrived 
when Thomas ought to go to Bounderby.” 

Time, sticking to him, passed him on into Bounderby’s 
Bank, made him an inmate of Bounderby’s house, neces- 
sitated the purchase of his first razor, and exercised him 
diligently in his calculations relative to number one. 


124 


HARD TIMES. 


The same great manufacturer, always with an immense 
variety of work on hand, in every stage of development, 
passed Sissy onward in his mill, and worked her up into 
a very pretty article indeed. 

“ I fear, Jupe,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “ that your con- 
tinuance at the school any longer would be useless.” 

“ I am afraid it would, sir,” Sissy answered with a 
courtesy. 

“ I cannot disguise from you, Jupe,” said Mr. Grad- 
grind, knitting his brow, “ that the result of your proba- 
tion there has disappointed me ; has greatly disappointed 
me. You have not acquired, under Mr. and Mrs. 
M’Choakumchild, anything like that amount of exact 
knowledge which I looked for. You are extremely defi- 
cient in your facts. Your acquaintance with figures is 
very limited. You are altogether backward, and below 
the mark.” 

“ I am sorry, sir,” she returned ; “ but I know it is 
quite true. Yet I have tried hard, sir.” 

“ Yes,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “ yes, I believe you have 
tried hard ; I have observed you, and I can find no fault 
in that respect.” 

“ Thank you, sir. I have thought sometimes ; ” Sissy 
very timid here ; u that perhaps I tried to learn too 
much, and that if I had asked to be allowed to try a 
little less, I might have ” — 

“ No, Jupe, no,” said Mr. Gradgrind, shaking his head 
in his profoundest and most eminently practical way. 
“ No. The course you pursued, you pursued according 
to the system — the system — and there is no more to 
be said about it. I can only suppose that the circum- 
stances of your early life were too unfavorable to the 
development of your reasoning powers, and that we 


HARD TIMES. 


U5 

began too late. Still, as I have said already, I am 
disappointed.” 

“ I wish I coi dd have made a better acknowledgment, 
sir, of your kindness to a poor forlorn girl who had no 
claim upon you, and of your protection of her.” 

“ Don’t shed tears,” said Mr. Gradgrind. “ Don’t shed 
tears. I don’t complain of you. You are an affection- 
ate, earnest, good young woman, and — and we must 
make that do.” 

“ Thank you, sir, very much,” said Sissy, with a grate- 
ful courtesy. 

“ You are useful to Mrs. Gradgrind, and (in a gener- 
ally pervading way) you are serviceable in the family 
also ; so I understand from Miss Louisa, and, indeed, so 
I have observed myself. I therefore hope,” said Mr. 
Gradgrind, “ that you can make yourself happy in those 
relations.” 

“ I should have nothing to wish, sir, if ” — 

“ I understand you,” said Mr. Gradgrind ; “ you still 
refer to your father. I have heard from Miss Louisa 
that you still preserve that bottle. Well ! If your 
training in the science of arriving at exact results had 
been more successful, you would have been wiser on 
these points. I will say no more.” 

He really liked Sissy too well to have a contempt for 
her ; otherwise he held her calculating powers in such 
very slight estimation that he must have fallen upon that 
conclusion. Somehow or other, he had become possessed 
by an idea that there was something in this girl which 
could hardly be set forth in a tabular form. Her capacity 
of definition might be easily stated at a very low figure, 
her mathematical knowledge at nothing ; yet he w r as not 
sure that if he had been required, for example, to tick 


126 


HARD TIMES. 


her off into columns in a parliamentary return, he would 
have quite known how to divide her. 

In some stages of his manufacture of the human fabric, 
the processes of Time are very rapid. Young Thomas 
and Sissy being both at such a stage of their working up, 
these changes were effected in a year or two ; while Mr. 
Gradgrind himself seemed stationary in his course, and 
underwent no alteration. 

Except one, which was apart from his necessary prog- 
ress through the mill. Time hustled him into a little 
noisy and rather dirty machinery, in a by-corner, and 
made him Member of Parliament for Coketown : one 
of the respected members for ounce weights and meas- 
ures, one of the representatives of the multiplication 
table, one of the deaf honorable gentlemen, dumb hon- 
orable gentlemen, blind honorable gentlemen, lame 
honorable gentlemen, dead honorable gentlemen, to 
every other consideration. Else wherefore live we in 
a Christian land, eighteen hundred and odd years after 
our Master ? 

All this while, Louisa had been passing on, so quiet 
and reserved, and so much given to watching the bright 
ashes at twilight as they fell into the grate and became 
extinct, that from the period when her father had said 
she was almost a young woman — which seemed but yes- 
terday — she had scarcely attracted his notice again, when 
he found her quite a young woman. 

“ Quite a young woman,” said Mr. Gradgrind, musing. 
u Dear me ! ” 

Soon after this discovery, he became more thoughtful 
than usual for several days, and seemed much engrossed 
by one subject. On a certain night, when he was going 
out, and Louisa came to bid him good-by before his de- 


HARD TIMES. 


127 


parture — as he was not to be home until late and she 
would not see him again until the morning — he held her 
in his arms, looking at her in his kindest manner, and 
said : 

“ My dear Louisa, you are a woman ! ” 

She answered with the old, quick, searching look of the 
night when she was found at the Circus ; then cast down 
her eyes. “ Yes, father.” 

“ My dear,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “ I must speak with 
you alone and seriously. Come to me in my room after 
breakfast to-morrow, will you ? ” 

“ Yes, father.” 

“ Your hands are rather cold, Louisa. Are you not 
well ? ” 

“ Quite well, father.” 

“ And cheerful ? ” 

She looked at him again, and smiled in her peculiar 
manner. “ I am as cheerful, father, as I usually am, or 
usually have been.” 

“ That’s well,” said Mr. Gradgrind. So, he kissed her 
and went away ; and Louisa returned to the serene apart- 
ment of the hair-cutting character, and leaning her elbow 
on her hand, looked again at the short-lived sparks that 
so soon subsided into ashes. 

“ Are you there, Loo ? ” said her brother, looking in at 
the door. He was quite a young gentleman of pleasure 
now, and not quite a prepossessing one. 

“ Dear Tom,” she answered, rising and embracing him 
46 how long it is since you have been to see me ! ” 

“ Why, I have been otherwise engaged, Loo, in the 
evenings ; and in the daytime old Bounderby has been 
keeping me at it rather. But I touch him up with you, 
when he comes it too strong, and so we preserve an un- 


12b 


HARD TIMES. 


derstanding. I say ! Has father said anything particular 
to you, to-day or yesterday, Loo ? ” 

“ No, Tom. But he told me to-night that he wished 
to do so in the morning.” 

“ Ah ! That’s what I mean,” said Tom. “ Do you 
know where he is to-night ? ” — with a very deep expres- 
sion. 

“ No.” 

“ Then Til tell you. He’s with old Bounderby. They 
are having a regular confab together, up at the Bank 
Why at the Bank, do you think ? Well, I’ll tell you 1 
again. To keep Mrs. Sparsit’s ears as far off as possible, 
I expect.” 

With her hand upon her brother's shoulder, Louisa 
still stood looking at the fire. Her brother glanced at 
her face with greater interest than usual, and, encircling 
her waist with his arm, drew her coaxingly to him. 

“ You are very fond of me, a’n’t you, Loo ? ” 
u Indeed I am, Tom, though you do let such long in- 
tervals go by without coming to see me.” 

“ Well, sister of mine,” said Tom, “ when you say 
that, you are near my thoughts. We might be so much 
oftener together — mightn’t we ? Always together, 
almost — mightn’t we ? It would do me a great deal 
of good if you were to make up your mind to I know 
what, Loo. It would be a splendid thing for me. It 
would be uncommonly jolly ! ” 

Her thoughtfulness baffled his cunning scrutiny. He 
could make nothing of her face. He pressed her in his 
arm, and kissed her cheek. She returned the kiss, but 
still looked at the fire. 

“ I say, I.oo ! I thought I’d come, and just hint to you 
what was going on : though I supposed you’d most likely 


HARD TIMES. 


129 


guess, even if you didn’t know. I can’t stay, because 
I’m engaged to some fellows to-night. You won’t forget 
how fond you are of me ? ” 

“ No, dear Tom, I won’t forget.” 

“ That’s a capital girl,” said Tom. “ Good-by, Loo.” 
She gave him an affectionate good-night, and went out 
with him to the door, whence the fires of Coketown could 
be seen, making the distance lurid. She stood there, 
looking steadfastly towards them, and listening to his de- 
parting steps. They retreated quickly, as glad to get 
away from Stone Lodge ; and she stood there yet, when 
he was gone and all was quiet. It seemed as if, first in 
her own fire within the house, and then in the fiery haze 
without, she tried to discover what kind of woof Old 
Time, that greatest and longest established Spinner of 
all, would weave from the threads he had already spun 
into a woman. But his factory is a secret place, his 
work is noiseless, and his Hands are mutes. 


VOL. I. 


9 


130 


HARD TIMES. 


CHAPTER XV. 

FATHER AND DAUGHTER. 

Although Mr. Gradgrind did not take after Blue 
Beard, his room was quite a blue chamber in its abun- 
dance of blue books. Whatever they could prove (which 
is usually anything you like), they proved there, in an 
army constantly strengthening by the arrival of new re- 
cruits. In that charmed apartment, the most complicated 
social questions were cast up, got into exact totals, and 
finally settled — if those concerned could only have been 
brought to know it. As if an astronomical observatory 
should be made without any windows, and the astronomer 
within should arrange the starry universe solely by pen, 
ink, and paper, so Mr. Gradgrind, in his Observatory 
(and there are many like it), had no need to cast an eye 
upon the teeming myriads of human beings around him, 
but could settle all their destinies on a slate, and wipe 
out all their tears with one dirty little bit of sponge. 

To this Observatory, then : a stern room, with a deadly 
tatistical clock in it, which measured every second with 
beat like a rap upon a coffin-lid : Louisa repaired on the 
appointed morning. A window looked towards Coke- 
town ; and when she sat down near her father’s table, 
she saw the high chimneys and the long tracts of smoke 
looming in the heavy distance gloomily. 

“ My dear Louisa,” said her father, “ I prepared you 


HARD TIMES. 


131 


last night to give me your serious attention in the con- 
versation we are now going to have together. You have 
been so well trained, and you do, I am happy to say, so 
much justice to the education you have received, that I 
have perfect confidence in your good sense. You are not 
impulsive, you are not romantic, you are accustomed to 
view everything from the strong dispassionate ground of 
reason and calculation. From that ground alone, I know 
you will view and consider what I am going to communi- 
cate.” 

He waited, as if he would have been glad that she said 
something. But she said never a word. 

“ Louisa, my dear, you are the subject of a proposal of 
marriage that has been made to me.” 

Again he waited, and again she answered not one word. 
This so far surprised him, as to induce him gently to re- 
peat, “ a proposal of marriage, my dear.” To which she 
returned, without any visible emotion whatever : 

“ I hear you, father. I am attending, I assure you.” 
“Well!” said Mr. Gradgrind, breaking into a smile, 
after being for the moment at a loss, “ you are even more 
dispassionate than I expected, Louisa. Or, perhaps, you 
are not unprepared for the announcement I have it in 
charge to make ? ” 

“ I cannot say that, father, until I hear it. Prepared 
or unprepared, I wish to hear it all from you. I wish to 
hear you state it to me, father.” 

Strange to relate, Mr. Gradgrind was not so collected 
at this moment as his daughter was. He took a paper- 
knife in his hand, turned it over, laid it down, took it up 
again, and even then had to look along the blade of it, 
considering how to go on. 

“ What you say, my dear Louisa, is perfectly reason- 


132 


HARD TIMES. 


able. I have undertaken then to let you know that — in 
short, that Mr. Bounderby has informed me that he has 
long watched your progress with particular interest and 
pleasure, and has long hoped that the time might ulti- 
mately arrive when he should offer you his hand in mar 
riage. That time, to which he has so long, and certainly 
with great constancy, looked forward, is now come. Mr. 
Bounderby has made his proposal of marriage to me, and 
has entreated me to make it known to you, and to express 
his hope that you will take it into your favorable con- 
sideration. ’’ 

Silence between them. The deadly statistical clock 
very hollow. The distant smoke very black and heavy. 

“ Father,” said Louisa, “ do you think I love Mr. 
Bounderby ? ” 

Mr. Gradgrind was extremely discomfited by this un- 
expected question. “Well, my child,” he returned, “I 
— really — cannot take upon myself to say.” 

“ Father,” pursued Louisa in exactly the same voice as 
before, “ do you ask me to love Mr. Bounderby ? ” 

“ My dear Louisa, no. No. I ask nothing.” 

“ Father,” she still pursued, “ does Mr. Bounderby ask 
me to love him ? ” 

“ Really, my dear,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “ it is difficult 
to answer your question ” — 

“ Difficult to answer it, Yes or No, father ? ” 

“ Certainly, my dear. Because ; ” here was something 
to demonstrate, and it set him up again ; u because the 
reply depends so materially, Louisa, on the sense in which 
we use the expression. Now, Mr. Bounderby does not 
do you the injustice, and does not do himself the injus- 
tice, of pretending to anything fanciful, fantastic, or (I 
am using synonymous terms) sentimental. Mr. Boun- 


HARD TIMES. 


133 


derby would have seen you grow up under liis eyes, to 
very little purpose, if be could so far forget wbat is due 
to your good sense, not to say to bis, as to address you 
from any sucb ground. Therefore, perhaps the expres- 
sion itself — I merely suggest this to you, my dear — 
may be a little misplaced.” 

“ What would you advise me to use in its stead, 
father ? ” 

“Why, my dear Louisa,” said Mr. Gradgrind, com- 
pletely recovered by this time, “ I would advise you 
(since you ask me) to consider this question, as you have 
been accustomed to consider every other question, simply 
as one of tangible Fact. The ignorant and the giddy 
may embarrass such subjects with irrelevant fancies, and 
other absurdities that have no existence, properly viewed 
— really no existence — but it is no compliment to you 
to say, that you know better. Now, what are the Facts 
of this case ? You are, we will say in round numbers, 
twenty years of age ; Mr. Bounderby is, we will say in 
round numbers, fifty. There is some disparity in youi 
respective years, but in your means and positions there 
is none ; on the contrary, there is a great suitability. 
Then the question arises, Is this one disparity sufficient 
to operate as a bar to such a marriage ? In considering 
tills question, it is not unimportant to take into account 
the statistics of marriage, so far as they have yet been 
obtained, in England and Wales. I find, on reference to 
he figures, that a large proportion of these marriages are 
contracted between parties of very unequal ages, and 
that the elder of these contracting parties is, in rather 
more than three fourths of these instances, the bride- 
groom. It is remarkable as showing the wide prevalence 
of this law, that among the natives of the British posses- 


134 


HARD TIMES. 


sions in India, also in a considerable part of China, and 
among the Calmucks of Tartary, the best means of com- 
putation yet furnished us by travellers, yield similar re- 
ults. The disparity I have mentioned, therefore, almost 
ceases to be disparity, and (virtually) all but disap- 
pears.” 

“ What do you recommend, father,” asked Louisa, her 
reserved composure not in the least affected by these 
gratifying results, “ that I should substitute for the term 
I used just now ? For the misplaced expression ?” 

“ Louisa,” returned her father, “ it appears to me that 
nothing can be plainer. Confining yourself rigidly to 
Fact, the question of Fact you state to yourself is : Does 
Mr. Bounderby ask me to marry him ? Yes, he does. 
The sole remaining question then is : Shall I marry him ? 
I think nothing can be plainer than that.” 

“ Shall I marry him ? ” repeated Louisa, with great 
deliberation. 

“ Precisely. And it is satisfactory to me, as your 
father, my dear Louisa, to know that you do not come to 
the consideration of that question with the previous hab- 
its of mind, and habits of life, that belong to many young 
women.” 

“ No, father,” she returned, u I do not.” 

“ I now leave you to judge for yourself,” said Mr. 
Gradgrind. “ I have stated the case, as such cases are 
usually stated among practical minds ; I have stated it, 
as the case of your mother and myself was stated in its 
time. The rest, my dear Louisa, is for you to decide.” 

F rom the beginning, she had sat looking at him fixedly. 
As he now leaned back in his chair, and bent his deep-set 
eyes upon her in his turn, perhaps he might have seen 
one wavering moment in her, when she was impelled to 


HARD TIMES. 


135 


throw herself upon his breast, and give him the pent-up 
confidences of her heart. But, to see it, he must have 
overleaped at a bound the artificial barriers he had for 
many years been erecting, between himself and all those 
subtle essences of humanity which will elude the utmost 
cunning of algebra until the last trumpet ever to be 
sounded shall blow even algebra to wreck. The barriers 
were too many and too high for such a leap. With his 
unbending, utilitarian, matter-of-fact face, he hardened 
her again ; and the moment shot away into the plumbless 
depths of the past, to mingle with all the lost opportuni- 
ties that are drowned there. 

Removing her eyes from him, she sat so long looking 
silently towards the town, that he said, at length, “ Are 
you consulting the chimneys of the Coketown works, 
Louisa ? ” 

“ There seems to be nothing there but languid and 
monotonous smoke. Yet when the night comes, Fire 
bursts out, father ! ” she answered, turning quickly. 

“ Of course I know that, Louisa. I do not see the 
application of the remark.” To do him justice, he did 
not, at all. 

She passed it away with a slight motion of her hand, 
and concentrating her attention upon him again, said, 
“ Father, I have often thought that life is very short.” 

This was so distinctly one of his subjects that he inter- 

* 

losed, — 

“ It is short, no doubt, my dear. Still, the average 
duration of human life is proved to have increased of 
late years. The calculations of various life assurance 
and annuity offices, among other figures which cannot gc 
wrong, have established the fact.” 

“ I speak of rry own life, father .* 7 


136 


HARD TIMES. 


“ 0 indeed ? Still,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “ 1 need not 
point out to you, Louisa, that it is governed by the laws 
which govern lives in the aggregate.’’ 

“ "While it lasts, I would wish to do the little I can, 
and the little I am tit for. What does it matter ! ” 

Mr. Gradgrind seemed rather at a loss to understand 
the last four words ; replying, “ How, matter ? What 
matter, my dear ? ” 

“ Mr. Bounderby,” she went on in a steady, straight 
way, without regarding this, “ asks me to marry him. 
The question I have to ask myself is, shall I marry him ? 
That is so, father, is it not ? You have told me so, 
father. Have you not ? ” 

“ Certainly, my dear.” 

“ Let it be so. Since Mr. Bounderby likes to take me 
thus, I am satisfied to accept his proposal. Tell him, 
father, as soon as you please, that this was my answer. 
Repeat it, word for word, if you can, because I should 
wish him to know what I said.” 

“ It is quite right, my dear,” retorted her father, 
approvingly, “ to be exact. I will observe your very 
proper request. Have you any wish in reference to the 
period of your marriage, my child ? ” 

“ None, father. What does it matter ! ” 

Mr. Gradgrind had drawn his chair a little nearer to 
her, and taken her hand. But, her repetition of these 
words seemed to strike with some little discord on his 
ear. He paused to look at her, and, still holding her 
hand, said, — 

“ Louisa, I have not considered it essential to ask you 
one question, because the possibility implied in it ap- 
peared to me to be too remote. But perhaps, I ought to 
do so. You have never entertained in secret any other 
proposal ? ” 


HARD TIMES. 


137 


“ Father,” she returned, almost scornfully, u what other 
proposal can have been made to me ? Whom have I 
seen ? Where have I been ? What are my heart’s ex- 
periences ? ” 

“ My dear Louisa,” returned Mr. Gradgrind, reassured 
and satisfied, “ you correct me justly. I merely wished 
to discharge my duty.” 

“ What do 7 know, father,” said Louisa in her quiet 
manner, “ of tastes and fancies ; of aspirations and affec- 
tions ; of all that part of my nature in which such light 
things might have been nourished ? What escape have 
I had from problems that could be demonstrated, and 
realities that could be grasped?” As she said it, she 
unconsciously closed her hand, as if upon a solid object, 
and slowly opened it as though she were releasing dust 
or ash. 

\ 

“ My dear,” assented her eminently practical parent, 
“ quite true, quite true.” 

Why, father,” she pursued, u what a strange ques- 
tion to ask me ! The baby-preference that even I 
have heard of as common among children, has never 
had its innocent resting-place in my breast. You have 
been so careful of me, that I never had a child's heart. 
You have trained me so well, that I never dreamed a 
child’s dream. You have dealt so wisely with me, father, 
from my cradle to this hour, that I never had a child’3 
belief or a child’s fear.” 

Mr. Gradgrind was quite moved by his success, and by 
this testimony to it. “ My dear Louisa,” said he, “ you 
abundantly repay my care. Kiss me, my dear girl.” 

So, his daughter kissed him. Detaining her in his 
embrace, he said, “ I may assure you now, my favorite 
child, that I am made happy by the sound decision at 


V 


138 HARD TIMES. 

which you have arrived. Mr. Bounderby is a very re- 
markable man ; and what little disparity can be said to 
exist between you — if any — is more than counterbal- 
anced by the tone your mind has acquired. It has always 
been my object so to educate you, as that you might, 
while still in your early youth, be (if I may so express 
myself) almost any age. Kiss me once more, Louisa 
Now, let us go and find your mother.” 

Accordingly, they went down to the drawing-room, 
where the esteemed lady with no nonsense about her, 
was recumbent as usual, while Sissy worked beside her. 
She gave some feeble signs of returning animation when 
they entered, and presently the faint transparency was 
presented in a sitting attitude. 

“ Mrs. Gradgrind,” said her husband, who had waited 
for the achievement of this feat with some impatience, 
“ allow me to present to you Mrs. Bounderby.” 

“ Oh ! ” said Mrs. Gradgrind, “ so you have settled it ! 
Well, I’m sure I hope your health may be good, Louisa ; 
for if your head begins to split as soon as you are mar- 
ried, which was the case with mine, I cannot consider 
that you are to be envied, though I have no doubt you 
think you are, as all girls do. However, I give you joy, 
my dear — and I hope you may now turn all your ologi- 
cal studies to good account, I am sure I do ! I must give 
you a kiss of congratulation, Louisa ; but don’t touch 
my right shoulder, for there’s something running dow 
it all day long. And now you see,” whimpered Mrs 
Gradgrind, adjusting her shawls after the affectionate 
ceremony, “ I shall be worrying myself, morning, noon, 
and night, to know what I am to call him ! ” 

“ Mrs. Gradgrind,” said her husband, solemnly, “ what 
do you mean ? ” 


HARD TIMES. 


139 


“ Whatever I am to call him, Mr. Gradgrind, when 
he is married to Louisa! I must call him something. 
It’s impossible,” said Mrs. Gradgrind, with a mingled 
sense of politeness and injury, “ to be constantly address- 
ing him and never giving him a name. I cannot call him 
Josiah, for the name is insupportable to me. You your- 
self wouldn’t hear of Joe, you very well know. Am I to 
call my own son-in-law, Mister ? Not, I believe, unless 
the time has arrived when, as an invalid, I am to be 
trampled upon by my relations. Then, what am I to 
call him?” 

Nobody present having any suggestion to offer in the 
remarkable emergency, Mrs. Gradgrind departed this life 
for the time being, after delivering the following codicil 
to her remarks already executed, — 

“ As to the wedding, all I ask, Louisa, is, — and I ask 
it with a fluttering in my chest, which actually extends 
to the soles of my feet, — that it may take place soon. 
Otherwise, I know it is one of those 
never hear the last of.” 

When Mr. Gradgrind had presented Mrs. Bounderby, 
Sissy had suddenly turned her head, and looked, in won- 
der, in pity, in sorrow, in doubt, in a multitude of emo- 
tions, towards Louisa. Louisa had known it, and seen it, 
without looking at her. From that moment she was im- 
passive, proud, and cold — held Sissy at a distance — 
changed to her altogether. 


subjects I shall 


140 


HARD TIMES. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

HUSBAND AND WIFE. 

Mr. Bounderby’s first disquietude on hearing of his 
happiness, was occasioned by the necessity of imparting 
it to Mrs. Sparsit. He could not make up his mind how 
to do that, or what the consequences of the step might be. 
Whether she would instantly depart, bag and baggage, to 
Lady Scadgers, or would positively refuse to budge from 
the premises ; whether she would be plaintive or abusive, 
tearful or tearing ; whether she would break her heart, or 
break the looking-glass ; Mr. Bounderby could not at 
all foresee. However, as it must be done, he had no 
choice but to do it ; so, after attempting several letters, 
and failing in them all, he resolved to do it by word of 
mouth. 

On his way home, on the evening he set aside for this 
momentous purpose, he took the precaution of stepping 
into a chemist’s shop and buying a bottle of the very 
strongest smelling-salts. “ By George ! ” said Mr. Boun- 
derby, “ if she takes it in the fainting way, I’ll have the 
kin off her nose, at all events ! ” But, in spite of being 
thus forearmed, he entered his own house with anything 
but a courageous air ; and appeared before the object of 
his misgivings, like a dog who was conscious of coming 
direct from the pantry. 

“ Good evening, Mr. Bounderby ! ” 


HARD TIMES. 


141 


“ Good evening, ma’am, good evening.” He drew up 
his chair, and Mrs. Sparsit drew back hers, as who should 
say, “ Your fireside, sir. I freely admit it. It is for 
you to occupy it all, if you think proper.” 

“ Don’t go to the North Pole, ma’am ! ” said Mr 
Bounderby. 

“ Thank you, sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit, and returned, 
though short of her former position. 

Mr. Bounderby sat looking at her, as, with the points 
of a stiff, sharp pair of scissors, she picked out holes for 
some inscrutable ornamental purpose, in a piece of cam- 
bric. An operation which, taken in connection with the 
bushy eyebrows and the Roman nose, suggested with 
some liveliness the idea of a hawk engaged upon the 
eyes of a tough little bird. She was so steadfastly occu- 
pied, that many minutes elapsed before she looked up 
from her work : when she did so, Mr. Bounderby bespoke 
her attention with a hitch of his head. 

“ Mrs. Sparsit ma’am,” said Mr. Bounderby, putting 
his hands in his pockets, and assuring himself with his 
right hand that the cork of the little bottle was ready 
for use, “ I have no occasion to say to you, that you are 
not only a lady born and bred, but a devilish sensible 
woman.” 

“ Sir,” returned the lady, “ this is indeed not the first 
time that you have honored me with similar expressions 
of your good opinion.” 

u Mrs. Sparsit ma’am,” said Mr. Bounderby, “ I an 
going to astonish you.” 

“ Yes, sir ? ” returned Mrs. Sparsit, interrogatively, 
and in the most tranquil manner possible. She gen- 
erally wore mittens, and she now laid down her work, 
and smoothed those mittens. 


142 


HARD TIMES. 


“ I am going, ma’am,” said Bounderby, “ to marry Tom 
Gradgrind’s daughter.” 

“ Yes, sir ? ” returned Mrs. Sparsit. “ I hope you 
may be happy, Mr. Bounderby. Oh, indeed I hope you 
may be happy, sir ! ” And she said it with such great 
•ondescension, as well as with such great compassion for 
him, that Bounderby — far more disconcerted than if 
she had thrown her work-box at the mirror, or swooned 
on the hearth-rug — corked up the smelling-salts tight 
in his pocket, and thought, “ Now confound this woman, 
who could have ever guessed that she would take it in 
this way ! ” 

“ I wish with all my heart, sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit, in 
a highly superior manner ; somehow she seemed, in a 
moment, to have established a right to pity him ever 
afterwards ; “ that you may be in all respects very 
happy.” 

“Well, ma’am,” returned Bounderby, with some re- 
sentment in his tone : which was clearly lowered, though 
in spite of himself, “I am obliged to you. I hope I 
shall be.” 

“ Do you, sir ! ” said Mrs. Sparsit, with great affability. 
“ But naturally you do ; of course you do.” 

A very awkward pause on Mr. Bounderby’s part suc- 
ceeded. Mrs. Sparsit sedately resumed her work, and 
occasionally gave a small cough, which sounded like the 
•ough of conscious strength and forbearance. 

“ Well, ma’am,” resumed Bounderby, “ under these 
circumstances, I imagine it would not be agreeable to a 
character like yours to remain here, though you would 
be very welcome here ? ” 

“ Oh dear no, sir, I could on no account think of that ! ” 
Mrs. Sparsit shook her head, still in her highly superior 




HARD TIMES. 


143 


manner, and a little changed the small cough — coughing 
now, as if the spirit of prophecy rose within her, but had 
better be coughed down. 

“ However, ma’am,” said Bounderby, “ there are apart- 
ments at the Bank, where a born and bred lady, as keeper 
of the place, would be rather a catch than otherwise 
and if the same terms ” — 

“ I beg your pardon, sir. You were so good as to 
promise that you would always substitute the phrase, 
annual compliment.” 

“ Well, ma’am, annual compliment. If the same an- 
nual compliment would be acceptable there, why, I see 
nothing to part us unless you do.” 

“ Sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit. “ The proposal is like 
yourself, and if the position I shall assume at the Bank 
is one that I could occupy without descending lower in 
the social scale ” — 

“ Why, of course it is,” said Bounderby. “ If it was 
not, ma’am, you don’t suppose that I should offer it to 
a lady who has moved in the society you have moved 
in. Not that I care for such society, you know ! But 
you do.” 

“ Mr. Bounderby, you are very considerate.” 

“ You’ll have your own private apartments, and you’ll 
have your coals and your candles and all the rest of it, 
and you’ll have your maid to attend upon you, and you’ll 
have your light porter to protect you, and you’ll be 
what I take the liberty of considering precious comfort- 
able,” said Bounderby. 

“ Sir,” rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, “ say no more. In yield 
ing up my trust here, I shall not be freed from the neces- 
sity of eating the bread of dependence : ” she might have 
said the sweetbread, for that delicate article in a savory 


144 


HARD TIMES. 


brown sauce was her favorite supper : “ and I would 
rather receive it from your hand than from any other. 
Therefore, sir, I accept your offer gratefully, and with 
many sincere acknowledgments for past favors. And 
I hope sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit, concluding in an im 
pressively compassionate manner, “ I fondly hope tha 
Miss Gradgrind may be all you desire, ;uid de- 
serve ! ” 

Nothing moved Mrs. Sparsit from that position any 
more. It was in vain for Bounderby to bluster, or to 
assert himself in any of his explosive ways ; Mrs. Sparsit 
was resolved to have compassion on him, as a Victim. 
She was polite, obliging, cheerful, hopeful ; but, the more 
polite, the more obliging, the more cheerful, the more 
hopeful, the more exemplary altogether, she ; the for- 
lorner Sacrifice and Victim, he. She had that tender- 
ness for his melancholy fate, that his great red counte- 
nance used to break out into cold perspirations when she 
looked at him. 

Meanwhile the marriage w r as appointed to be solem- 
nized in eight weeks’ time, and Mr. Bounderby went 
every evening to Stone Lodge as an accepted wooer. 
Love was made on these occasions in the form of brace- 
lets ; and, on all occasions during the period of betrothal, 
took a manufacturing aspect. Dresses were made, jew- 
elry was made, cakes and gloves were made, settlements 
were made, and an extensive assortment of Facts did 
appropriate honor to the contract. The business was 
all Fact, from first to last. The Hours did not go 
through any of these rosy performances, which foolish 
poets have ascribed to them at such times ; neither did 
the clocks go any faster, or any slower, than at other 
seasons. The deadly statistical recorder in the Grad- 


HARD TIMES. 


145 


grind observatory knocked every second on the head as 
it was born, and buried it with his accustomed regu- . 
larity. 

So the day came, as all other days come to people 
who will only stick to reason ; and when it came, there 
were married in the church of the florid wooden legs — 
that popular order of architecture — Josiah Bounderby 
Esquire of Coketown, to Louisa eldest daughter of 
Thomas Gradgrind Esquire of Stone Lodge, M. P. for 
that borough. And when they were united in holy mat- 
rimony, they went home to breakfast at Stone Lodge 
aforesaid. 

There was an improving party assembled on the auspi- 
cious occasion, who knew what everything they had to 
eat and drink was made of, and how it was imported or 
exported, and in what quantities, and in what bottoms, 
whether native or foreign, and all about it. The brides- 
maids, down to little Jane Gradgrind, were, in an intel- 
lectual point of view, fit helpmates for the calculating 
boy ; and there was no nonsense about any of the com- 
pany. 

After breakfast, the bridegroom addressed them in the 
following terms : — 

“ Ladies and gentlemen, I am Josiah Bounderby of 
Coketown. Since you have done my wife and myself 
the honor of drinking our healths and happiness, I sup- 
pose I must acknowledge the same ; though, as you all 
know me, and know what I am, and what my extraction 
was, you won’t expect a speech from a man who, when 
he sees a Post, says £ that’s a Post,’ and when he sees a 
Pump, says 4 that’s a Pump,’ and is not to be got to call 
a Post a Pump, or a Pump a Post, or either of them 
1 Toothpick. If you want a speech this morning, my 

10 


VOL. I. 


146 


HARD TIMES. 


friend and father-in-law, Tom Gradgrind, is a Member 
of Parliament, and you know where to get it. I am not 
your man. However, if I feel a little independent when 
I look around this table to-day, and reflect how little I 
thought of marrying Tom Gradgrind’s daughter when 
1 was a ragged street-boy, who never washed his face 
unless it was at a pump, and that not oftener tlian once 
a fortnight, I hope I may be excused. So, I hope you 
like my feeling independent ; if you don’t, I can’t help it. 
I do feel independent. Now I have mentioned, and you 
have mentioned, that I am this day married to Tom 
Gradgrind’s daughter. I am very glad to be so. It has 
long been my wish to be so. I have watched her bring- 
ing-up, and I believe she is worthy of me. At the same 
time — not to deceive you — I believe I am worthy of 
her. So, I thank you, on both our parts, for the good- 
will you have shown towards us ; and the best wish I 
can give the unmarried part of the present company, is 
this : I hope every bachelor may find as good a wife as 
I have found. And I hope every spinster may find as 
good a husband as my wife has found.” 

Shortly after which oration, as they were going on a 
nuptial trip to Lyons, in order that Mr. Bounderby might 
take the opportunity of seeing how the Hands got on in 
those parts, and whether they, too, required to be fed 
with gold spoons ; the happy pair departed for the rail- 
road. The bride, in passing down-stairs, dressed for 
her journey, found Tom waiting for her — flushed, 
either with his feelings or the vinous part of the break- 
fast. 

“ What a game girl you are, to be such a first-rate 
sister, Loo ! ” whispered Tom. 

She clung to him, as she should have clung to some 


HARD TIMES. 


147 


far better nature that day, and was a little shaken in hei 
reserved composure for the first time. 

“ Old Bounderby’s quite ready,” said Tom. “ Time’s 
up. Good-by ! I shall be on the look-out for you, 
when you come back. I say, my dear Loo ! A’n’t i* 
uncommonly jolly now ! ” 


END OF THE FIRST BOOK. 


1 48 


HARD TIMES. 


BOOK THE SECOND. 

REAPING. 

— ♦ — 

CHAPTER I. 

EFFECTS IN THE BANK. 

A sunny midsummer day. There was such a thing 
sometimes, even in Coketown. 

Seen from a distance in such weather, Coketown lay 
shrouded in a haze of its own, which appeared impervi- 
ous to the sun’s rays. You only knew the town was 
there, because you knew there could have been no such 
sulky blotch upon the prospect without a town. A blur 
of soot and smoke, now confusedly tending this way, now 
that way, now aspiring to the vault of Heaven, now 
murkily creeping along the earth, as the wind rose and 
fell, or changed its quarter : a dense formless jumble, 
with sheets of cross-light in it, that showed nothing but 
nasses of darkness : — Coketown in the distance was 
uggestive of itself, though not a brick of it could be 
seen. 

The wonder was, it was there at all. It had been 
ruined so often, that it was amazing how it had borne so 
many shocks. Surely there never was such fragile china- 
ware as that of which the millers of Coketown were 


HARD TIMES. 


149 


made. Handle them never so lightly, and they fell to 
pieces with such ease that you might suspect them of 
having been flawed before. They were ruined, when 
they were required to send laboring children to school ; 
they were ruined, when inspectors were appointed to 
look into their works ; they were ruined, when sucl 
inspectors considered it doubtful whether they were 
quite justified in chopping people up with their machin- 
ery ; they were utterly undone, when it was hinted that 
perhaps they need not always make quite so much smoke. 
Besides Mr. Bounderby's gold spoon which was generally 
received in Coketown, another prevalent fiction was very 
popular there. It took the form of a threat. Whenever 
a Coketowner felt he was ill-used — that is to say, when- 
ever he was not left entirely alone, and it was proposed 
to hold him accountable for the consequences of any of 
his acts — he was sure to come out with the awful men- 
ace, that he would “ sooner pitch his property into the 
Atlantic.” This had terrified the Home Secretary within 
an inch of his life on several occasions. 

However, the Coketowners were so patriotic after all, 
that they never had pitched their property into the At- 
lantic yet, but on the contrary had been kind enough to 
take mighty good care of it. So there it was, in the 
haze yonder ; and it increased and multiplied. 

The streets were hot and dusty on the summer day, 
and the sun was so bright that it even shone through the 
heavy vapor drooping over Coketown, and could not be 
looked at steadily. Stokers emerged from low under- 
ground doorways into factory yards, and sat on steps, and 
posts, and palings, wiping their swarthy visages, and con- 
templating coals. The whole town seemed to be frying 
in oil. There was a stifling smell of hot oil everywhere. 


J50 


HARD TIMES. 


The steam-engines shone with it, the dresses of the 
Hands were soiled with it, the mills throughout their 
many stories oozed and trickled it. The atmosphere of 
those Fairy palaces was like the breath of the simoom 
and their inhabitants, wasting with heat, toiled languidly 
in the desert. But no temperature made the melancholy 
mad elephants more mad or more sane. Their weari- 
some heads went up and down at the same rate, in hot 
weather and cold, wet weather and dry, fair weather and 
foul. The measured motion of their shadows on the 

walls, was the substitute Coketown had to show for the 

* 

shadows of rustling woods ; while, for the summer hum 
of insects, it could offer, all the year round, from the 
dawn of Monday to the night of Saturday, the whirr of 
shafts and wheels. 

Drowsily they whirred all through this sunny day, 
making the passenger more sleepy and more hot as he 
passed the humming walls of the mills. Sun-blinds, and 
sprinklings of water, a little cooled the main streets and 
the shops ; but the mills, and the courts and alleys, 
baked at a fierce heat. Down upon the river that was 
black and thick with dye, some Coketown boys who 
were at large — a rare sight there — rowed a crazy 
boat, which made a spumous track upon the water as it 
jogged along, while every dip of an oar stirred up vile 
smells. But the sun itself, however beneficent generally 
was less kind to Coketown than hard frost, and rarely 
looked intently into any of its closer regions without 
engendering more death than life. So does the eye of 
Heaven itself become an evil eye, when incapable or 
sordid hands are interposed between it and the things it 
looks upon to bless. 

Mrs. Sparsit sat in her afternoon apartment at the 


HARD TIMES. 


151 


Bank, on the shadier side of the frying street Office- 
horn’s were over : and at that period of the day, in warm 
weather, she usually embellished with her genteel pres- 
ence, a managerial board-room over the public office. 
Her own private sitting-room was a story higher, at the 
window of which post of observation she was ready, 
every morning, to greet Mr. Bounderby, as he came 
across the road, with the sympathizing recognition ap- 
propriate to a Victim. He had been married now, a 
year ; and Mrs. Sparsit had never released him from her 
determined pity a moment. 

The Bank offered no violence to the wholesome mo- 
notony of the town. It was another red brick house, 
with black outside shutters, green inside blinds, a black 
street-door up two white steps, a brazen door-plate, and 
a brazen door-handle full stop. It was a size larger than 
Mr. Bounderby’s house, as other houses were from a size 
to half a dozen sizes smaller ; in all other particulars, it 
was strictly according to pattern. 

Mrs. Sparsit was conscious that by coming in the 
evening-tide among the desks and writing implements, 
she shed a feminine, not to say also aristocratic, grace 
upon the office. Seated, with her needlework or netting 
apparatus, at the window, she had a self-laudatory sense 
of correcting, by her ladylike deportment, the rude 
business aspect of the place. With this impression of 
her interesting character upon her, Mrs. Sparsit consid- 
ered herself, in some sort, the Bank Fairy. The towns- 
people who, in their passing and repassing, saw her 
there, regarded her as the Bank Dragon keeping watch 
over the treasures of the mine. 

What those treasures were, Mrs. Sparsit knew as little 
as they did. Gold and silver coin, precious paper, secrets 






HARD TIMES. 


162 

that if divulged would bring vague destruction upon 
vague persons (generally, however, people whom she 
disliked), were the chief items in her ideal catalogue 
thereof. For the rest, she knew that after office-hours, 
she reigned supreme over all the office furniture, and 
over a locked-up iron room with three locks, against the 
door of which strong chamber the light porter laid his 
head every night, on a truckle-bed, that disappeared at 
cockcrow. Further, she was lady paramount over cer- 
tain vaults in the basement, sharply spiked off from com- 
munication with the predatory world ; and over the 
relics of the current day’s work, consisting of blots of 
ink, worn-out pens, fragments of wafers, and scraps of 
paper torn so small, that nothing interesting could ever 
be deciphered on them when Mrs. Sparsit tried. Lastly, 
she was guardian over a little armory of cutlasses and 
carbines, arrayed in vengeful order above one of the 
official chimney-pieces ; and over that respectable tradi- 
tion never to be separated from a place of business 
claiming to be wealthy — a row of fire-buckets — ves- 
sels calculated to be of no physical utility on any occa- 
sion, but observed to exercise a fine moral influence, 
almost equal to bullion, on most beholders. 

A deaf serving-woman and the light porter completed 
Mrs. Sparsit’s empire. The deaf serving-woman was 
rumored to be wealthy ; and a saying had for years gone 
about among the lower orders of Coketown, that she 
would be murdered some night when the Bank was shut, 
for the sake of her money. It was generally considered, 
indeed, that she had been due some time, and ought to 
have fallen long ago ; but she had kept her life, and her 
situation, with an ill-conditioned tenacity that occasioned 
much offence and disappointment. 


HARD times. 


153 


Mrs. Sparsit’s tea was just set for her on a pert little 
table, with its tripod of legs in an attitude, which she 
insinuated after office-hours, into the company of the 
stern, leathern-topped, long board-table that bestrode the 
middle of the room. The light porter placed the tea 
tray on it, knuckling his forehead as a form of homage. 

“ Thank you, Bitzer,” said Mrs. Sparsit. 

“ Thank you , ma’am,” returned the light porter. He 
was a very light porter indeed ; as light as in the days 
when he blinkingly defined a horse, for girl number 
twenty. 

“ All is shut up, Bitzer ? ” said Mrs. Sparsit. 

“ All is shut up, ma’am.” 

“ And what,” said Mrs. Sparsit, pouring out her tea, 
u is the news of the day ? Anything ? ” 

“ Well, ma’am, I can’t say that I have heard anything 
particular. Our people are a bad lot, ma’am ; but that 
is no news, unfortunately.” 

“ What are the restless wretches doing now ? ” asked 
Mrs. Sparsit. 

“ Merely going on in the old way, ma’am. Uniting, 
and leaguing, and engaging to stand by one another.” 

“ It is much to be regretted,” said Mrs. Sparsit, mak- 
ing her nose more Roman and her eyebrows more Corio- 
lanian in the strength of her severity, “ that the united 
masters allow of any such class-combinations.” 

“ Yes, ma’am,” said Bitzer. 

“ Being united themselves, they ought one and all to 
set their faces against employing any man who is united 
with any other man,” said Mrs. Sparsit. 

“ They have done that, ma’am,” returned Bitzer ; “ but 
it rather fell through, ma’am.” 

“ I do not pretend to understand these things,” said 


154 


HARD TIMES. 


Mrs. Sparsit, w itli dignity, “ my lot having been origi- 
nally cast in a widely different sphere ; and Mr. Sparsit, 
as a Powler, being also quite out of the pale of any such 
dissensions. I only know that these people must be con- 
quered, and that it’s high time it was done, once for all.” 

“ Yes, ma’am,” returned Bitzer, with a demonstration 
of great respect for Mrs. Sparsit’s oracular authority. 
“ You couldn’t put it clearer, I am sure, ma’am.” 

As this was his usual hour for having a little confiden- 
tial chat with Mrs. Sparsit, and as he had already caught 
her eye and seen that she was going to ask him some- 
thing, he made a pretence of arranging the rulers, ink- 
stands, and so forth, while that lady went on with her 
tea, glancing through the open window, down into the 
street. 

“ Has it been a busy day, Bitzer ? ” asked Mrs. Spar- 
sit. 

“ Not a very busy day, my lady. About an average 
day.” He now and then slided into my lady, instead of 
ma’am, as an involuntary acknowledgment of Mrs. Spar- 
sit’s personal dignity and claims to reverence. 

“ The clerks,” said Mrs. Sparsit, carefully brushing an 
imperceptible crumb of bread and butter from her left- 
hand mitten, “ are trustworthy, punctual, and industrious, 
of course ? ” 

“Yes, ma’am, pretty fair, ma’am. With the usual 
exception.” 

He held the respectable office of general spy and in- 
former in the establishment, for which volunteer service 
he received a present at Christmas, over and above his 
weekly wage. He had grown into an extremely clear- 
headed, cautious, prudent young man, who was safe to 
rise in the world. His mind was so exactly regulated, 


HARD TIMES. 


155 


that he had no affections or passions. All his proceed- 
ings were the result of the nicest and coldest calculation ; 
and it was not without cause that Mrs. Sparsit habitually 
observed of him, that he was a young man of the stead 
iest principle she had ever known. Having satisfied 
himself, on his father’s death, that his mother had a 
right of settlement in Coketown, this excellent young 
economist had asserted that right for her with such a 
steadfast adherence to the principle of the case, that she 
had been shut up in the workhouse ever since. It must 
be admitted that he allowed her half a pound of tea a 
year, which was weak in him : first, because all gifts 
have an inevitable tendency to pauperize the recipient, 
and secondly, because his only reasonable transaction in 
that commodity would have been to buy it for as little 
as he could possibly give, and sell it for as much as he 
could possibly get ; it having been clearly ascertained by 
philosophers that in this is comprised the whole duty of 
man — not a part of man’s duty, but the whole. 

“ Pretty fair, ma’am. With the usual exception, 
ma’am,” repeated Bitzer. 

“ Ah — h ! ” said Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her head over 
her tea-cup, and taking a long gulp. 

“ Mr. Thomas, ma’am, I doubt Mr. Thomas very 
much, ma’am, I don’t like his ways at all.” 

“ Bitzer,” said Mrs. Sparsit, in a very impressive man- 
ner, “ do you recollect my having said anything to you 
respecting names ? ” 

“ I beg your pardon, ma’am. It’s quite true that you 
did object to names being used, and they’re always best 
avoided.” 

“ Please to remember that I have a charge here,” said 
Mrs. Sparsit, with her air of state. “ I hold a trust here, 


156 


HARD TIMES. 


Bitzer, under Mr. Bounderby. However improbable 
both Mr. Bounderby and myself might have deemed it 
years ago, that he would ever become my patron, mak- 
ing me an annual compliment, I cannot but regard him 
in that light. From Mr. Bounderby I have received 
every acknowledgment of my social station, and ever} 
recognition of my family descent, that I could possibl} 
expect. More, far more. Therefore, to my patron I 
will be scrupulously true. And I do not consider, I will 
not consider, I cannot consider,” said Mrs. Sparsit, with 
a most extensive stock on hand of honor and morality, 
“ that I should be scrupulously true, if I allowed names 
to be mentioned under this roof, that are unfortunately — 
most unfortunately — no doubt of that — connected with 
his.” 

Bitzer knuckled his forehead again, and again begged 
pardon. 

66 No, Bitzer,” continued Mrs. Sparsit, “ say an indi- 
ridual, and I will hear you ; say Mr. Thomas, and you 
must excuse me.” 

“ With the usual exception, ma’am,” said Bitzer, try- 
ing back, “ of an individual.” 

66 Ah — h ! ” Mrs. Sparsit repeated the ejaculation, the 
shake of the head over her tea-cup, and the long gulp, 
as taking up the conversation again at the point where 
it had been interrupted. 

“ An individual, ma’am,” said Bitzer, “ has never beei 
what he ought to have been, since he first came into th< 
place. He is a dissipated, extravagant idler. He is not 
worth his salt, ma’am. He wouldn’t get it either, if he 
hadn’t a friend and relation at court, ma’am ! ” 

“ Ah — h ! ” said Mrs. Sparsit, with another melan- 
choly shake of her head. 


HARD TIMES. 


157 


“ I only hope, ma’am,” pursued Bitzer, “ that his friend 
and relation may not supply him with the means of car- 
rying on. Otherwise, ma’am, we know out of whose 
pocket that money comes.” 

“ Ah — h ! ” sighed Mrs. Sparsit again, with anothei 
melancholy shake of her head. 

“ He is to be pitied, ma’am. The last party I have 
alluded to, is to be pitied, ma’am,” said Bitzer. 

“ Yes, Bitzer,” said Mrs. Sparsit. “ I have always 
pitied the delusion, always.” 

“ As to an individual, ma’am,” said Bitzer, dropping 
his voice and drawing nearer, “ he is as improvident as 
any of the people in this town. And you know what 
their improvidence is, ma’am. No one could wish to 
know it better than a lady of your eminence does.” , 

“ They would do well,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, “ to 
take example by you, Bitzer.” 

“ Thank you, ma’am. But, since you do refer to me, 
now look at me, ma’am. I have put by a little, ma’am, 
already. That gratuity which I receive at Christmas, 
ma’am : I never touch it. I don’t even go the length of 
my wages, though they’re not high, ma’am. Why can’t 
they do as I have done, ma’am ? What one person can 
do, another can do.” 

This, again, was among the fictions of Coketown. Any 
capitalist there, who had made sixty thousand pounds out 
of sixpence, always professed to wonder why the sixty 
thousand nearest Hands didn’t each make sixty thousand 
pounds out of sixpence, and more or less reproached 
them every one for not accomplishing the little feat. 
What I did you can do. Why don’t you go and do 
it ? 

“ As to their wanting recreations, ma’am,” said Bitzer, 


HARD TIMES. 


158 

“ it’s stuff and nonsense. 1 don’t want recreations. 1 
never did, and I never shall ; I don’t like ’em. As to 
their combining together ; there are many of them, I 
have no doubt, that by watching and informing upon one 
another could earn a trifle now and then, whether in 
money or good will, and improve their livelihood. Then 
why don’t they improve it, ma’am ? It’s the first consid 
eration of a rational creature, and it’s what they pretend 
to want.” 

“ Pretend indeed ! ” said Mrs. Sparsit. 

“ I am sure we are constantly hearing, ma’am, till it 
becomes quite nauseous, concerning their wives and fam- 
ilies,” said Bitzer. “ Why look at me, ma’am ! 1 don’t 

want a wife and family. Why should they ? ” 

“ Because they are improvident,” said Mrs. Sparsit. 

“Yes, ma’am,” returned Bitzer, “that’s where it is. 
If they were more provident, and less perverse, ma’am, 
what would they do ? They would say, 6 While my hat 
covers my family,’ or ‘ while my bonnet covers my fam- 
ily ’ — as the case might be, ma’am — i I have only one 
to feed, and that’s the person I most like to feed.’ ” 

“ To be sure,” assented Mrs. Sparsit, eating muffin. 

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Bitzer, knuckling his fore- 
head again, in return for the favor of Mrs. Sparsit’s im- 
proving conversation. “Would you wish a little more 
hot water, ma’am, or is there anything else that I could 
fetch you ? ” 

“ Nothing just now, Bitzer.” 

“ Thank you, ma’am. I shouldn’t wish to disturb you 
at your meals, ma’am, particularly tea, knowing your 
partiality for it,” said Bitzer, craning a little to look over 
into the street from where he stood ; “ but there’s a gen- 
tleman been looking up here for a minute or so, ma’am- 


HARD TIMES. 


159 


and he has come across as if he was going to knock. 
That is his knock, ma’am, no doubt.” 

He stepped to the ividow ; and looking out, and draw- 
ing in his head again, confirmed himself with, “ Yes, 
ma’am. Would you wish the gentleman to be shown in, 
ma’am ? ” 

“ I don’t know who it can be,” said Mrs. Sparsit, wip- 
ing her mouth and arranging her mittens. 

“ A stranger, ma’am, evidently.” 

“ What a stranger can want at the Bank at this time 
of the evening, unless he comes upon some business for 
which he is too late, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Sparsit, 
“but I hold a charge in this establishment from Mr. 
Bounderby, and I will never shrink from it. If to see 
him is any part of the duty I have ' accepted, I will see 
him. Use your own discretion, Bitzer.” 

Here the visitor, all unconscious of Mrs. Sparsit’s mag- 
nanimous words, repeated his knock so loudly that the 
light porter hastened down to open the door ; while Mrs. 
Sparsit took the precaution of concealing her little table, 
with all its appliances upon it in a cupboard, and then 
decamped up-stairs that she might appear, if needful, 
with the greater dignity. 

“ If you please, ma’am, the gentleman would wish to 
see you,” said Bitzer, with his light eye at Mrs. Sparsit’s 
keyhole. So, Mrs. Sparsit, who had improved the inter- 
val by touching up her cap, took her classical features 
down-stairs again, and entered the board-room in the 
manner of a Roman matron going outside the city walls 
to treat with an invading general. 

The visitor having strolled to the window, and being 
then engaged in looking carelessly out, was as unmoved 
by this impressive entry as man could possibly be. He 


J 60 


HARD TIMES. 


stood whistling to himself with all imaginable coolness, 
with his hat still on, and a certain air of exhaustion upon 
him, in part arising from excessive summer, and in part 
from excessive gentility. For, it was to be seen with 
half an eye that he was a thorough gentleman, made to 
the model of the time ; weary of everything, and putting 
no more faith in anything than Lucifer. 

“ I believe, sir,” quoth Mrs. Sparsit, “ you wished to 
see me.” 

“ I beg your pardon,” he said, turning and removing 
his hat ; “ pray excuse me.” 

“ Humph ! ” thought Mrs. Sparsit, as she made a 
stately bend. “ Five and thirty, good-looking, good 
figure, good teeth, good voice, good breeding, well-dress- 
ed, dark hair, bold eyes.” All which Mrs. Sparsit ob- 
served in her womanly way — • like the Sultan who put 
his head in the pail of water — merely in dipping down 
and coming up again. 

“ Please to be seated, sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit. 

“ Thank you. Allow me.” He placed a chair for her, 
but remained himself carelessly lounging against the 
table. “ I left my servant at the railway looking after 
the luggage — very heavy train and vast quantity of it 
in the van — and strolled on, looking about me. Ex- 
ceedingly odd place. Will you allow me to ask you if 
it’s ahvays as black as this ? ” 

“ In general much blacker,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, in 
her uncompromising way. 

“ Is it possible ! Excuse me : you are not a native, 1 
think ? ” 

“ No, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit. “ It was once my 
good or ill fortune, as it may be — before I became a 
widow — to move in a very different sphere. My hus- 
band was a Powler.” 


HARD TIMES. 


161 


u Beg your pardon, really ! ” said the stranger. 
u Was ?” — 

Mrs. Sparsit repeated, “ A Powler.” “ Powler Fam- 
ily,” said the stranger, after reflecting a few moments. 
Airs. Sparsit signified assent. The stranger seemed a 
little more fatigued than before. 

“ You must be very much bored here ? ” was the in- 
ference he drew from the communication. 

“I am the servant of circumstances, sir,” said Mrs. 
Sparsit, “ and I have long adapted myself to the govern- 
ing power of my life.” 

“ Very philosophical,” returned the stranger, “ and 
very exemplary and laudable, and ” — It seemed to be 
scarcely worth his while to finish the sentence, so he 
played with his watch-chain wearily. 

“ May I be permitted to ask, sir,” said Airs. Sparsit, 
“ to what I am indebted for the favor of ” — 

“ Assuredly,” said the stranger. “ Much obliged to 
you for reminding me. I am the bearer of a letter of 
introduction to Air. Bounderby the banker. Walking 
through this extraordinarily black town, while they were 
getting dinner ready at the hotel, I asked a fellow whom 
I met ; one of the working people ; who appeared to 
have been taking a shower-bath of something fluffy, 
which I assumed to be the raw material : ” — 

Mrs. Sparsit inclined her head. 

“ — Paw material — where Air. Bounderby, the banker 
might reside. Upon which, misled no doubt by the word 
Banker, he directed me to the Bank. Fact being, I pre- 
sume that Mr. Bounderby the Banker, does not reside in 
the edifice in which I have the honor of offering this ex- 
planation ? ” 

“ No, sir,” returned Airs. Sparsit, “ he does not.” 

11 


) 

\ 


VOL. I. 


162 


HARD TIMES. 


“ Thank you. I had no intention of delivering my 
letter at the present moment, nor have I. But strolling 
on to the Bank to kill time, and having the good fortune 
to observe at the window,” towards which he languidly 
waved his hand, then slightly bowed, “ a lady of a very 
superior and agreeable appearance, I considered that I 
could not do better than take the liberty of asking that 
lady where Mr. Bounderby the Banker does live. 
Which I accordingly venture, with all suitable apolo- 
gies, to do.” 

The inattention and indolence of his manner were 
sufficiently relieved, to Mrs. Sparsit’s thinking, by a cer- 
tain gallantry at ease, which offered her homage too. 
Here he was, for instance, at this moment, all but sitting 
on the table, and yet lazily bending over her, as if he 
acknowledged an attraction in her that made her charm- 
ing — in her way. 

“ Banks, I know, are always suspicious, and officially 
must be,” said the stranger, whose lightness and smooth- 
ness of speech were pleasant likewise ; suggesting matter 
far more sensible and humorous than it ever contained 

— which was perhaps a shrewd device of the founder of 
this numerous sect, whosoever may have been that great 
man : “ therefore I may observe that my letter — here 
it is — is from the member for this place — Gradgrind 

— whom I have had the pleasure of knowing in Lon- 
don.” 

Mrs. Sparsit recognized the hand, intimated that such 
confirmation was quite unnecessary, and g&ve Mr. Boun- 
derby’s address, with all needful clues and directions in 
aid. 

“ Thousand thanks,” said the stranger. “ Of course 
you know the Banker well ? ” 


HARD TIMES. 


163 


“ Yes, sir,” rejoined Mrs. Sparsit. “ In my depend- 
ent relation towards him, I have known him ten years.” 

“ Quite an eternity ! I think he married Gradgrind’s 
daughter ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Mrs. Sparsit, suddenly compressing her 
mouth, “ he had that — honor.” 

“ The lady is quite a philosopher, I am told ? ” 

“ Indeed, sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit. “ Is she ? ” 

“ Excuse my impertinent curiosity,” pursued the stran- 
ger, fluttering over Mrs. Sparsit’s eyebrows, with a pro- 
pitiatory air, “ but you know the family, and know the 
world. I am about to know the family, and may have 
much to do with them. Is the lady so very alarming ? 
Her father gives her such a portentously hard-headed 
reputation, that I have a burning desire to know. Is she 
absolutely unapproachable ? Repellently and stunningly 
clever ? I see, by your meaning smile, you think not. 
You have poured balm into my anxious soul. As to age, 
now. Forty ! Five and thirty ? ” 

Mrs. Sparsit laughed outright. “A chit,” said she. 
u Not twenty when she was married.” 

“I give you my honor, Mrs. Powler,” returned the 
stranger, detaching himself from the table, “ that I never 
was so astonished in my life ! ” 

It really did seem to impress him, to the utmost extent 
of his capacity of being impressed. He looked at his 
informant for full a quarter of a minute, and appeared to 
have the surprise in his mind all the time. “ I assure 
you, Mrs. Powler,” he then said, much exhausted, u that 
the father’s manner prepared me for a grim and stony 
maturity. I am obliged to you, of all things, for correct- 
ing so absurd a mistake. Pray excuse my intrusion. 
Many thanks. Good-day ! ” 


164 


HARD TIMES. 


He bowed himself out ; and Mrs. Sparsit, hiding ir 
the window-curtain, saw him languishing down the street 
on the shady side of the way, observed of all the town. 

“ What do you think of the gentleman, Bitzer ? ” 
she asked the light porter, when he came to take 
away. 

“ Spends a deal of money on his dress, ma’am.” 

“ It must be admitted,” said Mrs. Sparsit, “ that it’s 
very tasteful.” 

“ Yes, ma’am,” returned Bitzer, “ if that’s worth the 
money.” 

“ Besides which, ma’am,” resumed Bitzer, while he 
was polishing the table, “ he looks to me as if he 
gamed.” 

“ It’s immoral to game/’ said Mrs. Sparsit. 

“ It’s ridiculous, ma’am,” said Bitzer, “ because the 
chances are against the players.” 

Whether it was that the heat prevented Mrs. Sparsit 
from working, or whether it was that her hand was out, 
she did no work that night. She sat at the window, 
when the sun began to sink behind the smoke ; she sat 
there, when the smoke was burning red, when the color 
faded from it, when darkness seemed to rise slowly out 
of the ground, and creep upward, upward, up to the house- 
tops, up the church steeple, up to the summits of the fac- 
tory chimneys, up to the sky. Without a candle in the 
room, Mrs. Sparsit sat at the window, with her hands 
before her, not thinking much of the sounds of evening : 
the whooping of boys, the barking of dogs, the rumbling 
of wheels, the steps and voices of passengers, the shrill 
street cries, the clogs upon the pavement when it was 
their hour for going by, the shutting-up of shop-shutters. 
Not until the light porter announced that her nocturnal 


HARD TIMES. 


1C5 


Bweetbread was ready, did Mrs. Sparsit arouse herself 
from her revery, and convey her dense black eyebrows 
— by that time creased with meditation, as if they needed 
ironing out — up-stairs. 

“ O, you Fool ! ” said Mrs. Sparsit, when she was alone 
at her supper. Whom she meant, she did not say ; but 
she could scarcely have meant the sweetbread. 


ICO 


HARD TIMES. 


CHAPTER n. 

MR. JAMES HARTHOUSE. 

The Gradgrind party wanted assistance in cutting the 
throats of the Graces. They went about recruiting ; 
and where could they enlist recruits more hopefully, than 
among the fine gentlemen who, having found out every- 
thing to be worth nothing, were equally ready for any- 
thing ? 

Moreover, the healthy spirits who had mounted to this 
sublime height were attractive to many of the Gradgrind 
school. They liked fine gentlemen ; they pretended that 
they did not, but they did. They became exhausted in 
imitation of them ; and they yaw-yawed in their speech 
like them ; and they served out, with an enervated air, 
the little mouldy rations of political economy, on which 
they regaled their disciples. There never before was 
seen on earth such a wonderful hybrid race as was thus 
produced. 

Among the fine gentlemen not regularly belonging to 
the Gradgrind school, there was one of a good family and 
a better appearance, with a happy turn of humor which 
had told immensely with the House of Commons on the 
occasion of his entertaining it with his (and the Board 
of Directors’) view of a railway accident, in which the 
most careful officers ever known, employed by the most 
liberal managers ever heard of, assisted by the finest 
mechanical contrivances ever devised, the whole in ac- 


HARD TIMES. 


167 


tion on the best line ever constructed, had killed five 
people and wounded thirty-two, by a casualty without 
which the excellence of the whole system would have 
been positively incomplete. Among the slain was a cow. 
and among the scattered articles unowned, a widow’s cap, 
And the honorable member had so tickled the House 
(which has a delicate sense of humor) by putting the 
cap on the cow, that it became impatient of any serious 
reference to the Coroner’s Inquest, and brought the rail- 
way off with Cheers and Laughter. 

Now, this gentleman had a younger brother of still 
better appearance than himself, who had tried life as a 
Cornet of Dragoons, and found it a bore ; and had after- 
wards tried it in the train of an English minister abroad, 
and found it a bore ; and had then strolled to Jerusalem, 
and got bored there ; and had then gone yachting about the 
world, and got bored everywhere. To whom this honor- 
able and jocular member fraternally said one day, “ Jem, 
there’s a good opening among the hard Fact fellows, and 
they want men. I wonder you don’t go in for statistics.” 
Jem, rather taken by the novelty of the idea, and very 
hard up for a change, was as ready to “ go in ” for statis- 
tics as for anything else. So, he went in. He coached 
himself up with a blue-book or. two ; and his brother put 
it about among the hard Fact fellows, and said, “If you 
want to bring in, for any place, a handsome dog who can 
make you a devilish good speech, look after my brother 
Jem, for he’s your man.” After a few dashes in the 
public meeting way, Mr. Gradgrind and a council of 
political sages approved of Jem, and it was resolved to 
send him down to Coketown, to become known there and 
in the neighborhood. Hence the letter Jem had last 
night shown to Mrs. Sparsit, which Mr. Bounderby now 


168 


HARD TIMES. 


held in his hand; superscribed, “ Josiah Bounderby, 
Esquire, Banker, Coketown. Specially to introduce 
James Harthouse, Esquire. Thomas Gradgrind.” 

Within an hour of the receipt of this dispatch and Mr. 
James Harthouse’s card, Mr. Bounderby put on his hat 
and went down to the Hotel. There he found Mr. James 
Harthouse looking out of window, in a state of mmd so 
disconsolate, that he was already half disposed to “ go in ” 
for something else. 

“ My name, sir,” said his visitor, “ is Josiah Bounderby, 
of Coketown.” 

Mr. James Harthouse was very happy indeed (though 
he scarcely looked so), to have a pleasure he had long 
expected. 

“ Coketown, sir,” said Bounderby, obstinately taking a 
chair, “ is not the kind of place you have been accus- 
tomed to. Therefore, if you will allow me — or whether 
you will or not, for I am a plain man — I’ll tell you 
something about it before we go any further.” 

Mr. Harthouse would be charmed. 

“ Don’t be too sure of that,” said Bounderby. “ I don’t 
promise it. First of all, you see our smoke. That’s 
meat and drink to us. It’s the healthiest thing in the 
world in all respects, and particularly for the lungs. If 
you are one of those who want us to consume it, I differ 
from you. We are not going to wear the bottoms of our 
boilers out any faster than we wear ’em out now, for 
all the humbugging sentiment in Great Britain and Ire- 
land.” 

By way of u going in ” to the fullest extent, Mr. Hart- 
house rejoined, “ Mr. Bounderby, I assure you I am 
entirely and completely of your way of thinking. Or 
conviction.” 


HARD TIMES. 


169 


u I am glad to hear it,” said Bounderby. “ Now, you 
have heard a lot of talk about the work in our mills, no 
doubt. You have ? Very good. I'll state the fact of it 
to you. It’s the pleasantest work there is, and it’s the 
lightest work there is, and it’s the best paid work there 
is. More than that, we couldn’t improve the mills them- 
selves, unless we laid down Turkey carpets on the floors. 
Which we’re not a-going to do.” 

“ Mr. Bounderby, perfectly right.” 

“ Lastly,” said Bounderby, “ as to our Hands. There’s 
not a Hand in this town, sir, man, woman, or child, but 
has one ultimate object in life. That object is, to be fed 
on turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon. Now, 
they’re not a-going — none of ’em — ever to be fed on 
turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon. And now 
you know the place.” 

Mr. Harthouse professed himself in the highest degree 
instructed and refreshed, by this condensed epitome of the 
whole Coketown question. 

“ Why, you see,” replied Mr. Bounderby, “ it suits my 
disposition to have a full understanding with a man, par- 
ticularly with a public man, when I make his acquaint- 
ance. I have only one thing more to say to you, Mr. 
Harthouse, before assuring you of the pleasure with 
which I shall respond, to the utmost of my poor ability, 
to my friend Tom Gradgrind’s letter of introduction. 
You are a man of family. Don’t you deceive yourself by 
supposing for a moment that I am a man of family. 1 
am a bit of dirty riff-raff, and a genuine scrap of tag, rag 
and bobtail.” 

If anything could have exalted Jem’s interest in Mr. 
Bounderby, it would have been this very circumstance. 
Or, so he told him. 


170 


HARD TIMES. 


\ 


“ So now,” said Bounderby, “ we may sliake hands on 
equal terms. I say, equal terms, because although I 
know what I am, and the exact depth of the gutter- I 
have lifted myself out of, better than any man does, I am 
as proud as you are. I am just as proud as you are. 
Having now asserted my independence in a proper man- 
ner, I may come to how do you find yourself, and I hope 
you’re pretty well.” 

The better, Mr. Harthouse gave him to understand as 
they shook hands, for the salubrious air of Coketown. 
Mr. Bounderby received the answer with favor. 

“ Perhaps you know,” said he, “ or perhaps you don’t 
know, I married Tom Gradgrind’s daughter. If you 
have nothing better to do than to walk up town with me, 
I shall be glad to introduce you to Tom Gradgrind’s 
daughter.” 

“ Mr. Bounderby,” said Jem, “ you anticipate my dear- 
est wishes.” 

They went out without further discourse ; and Mr. 
Bounderby piloted the new acquaintance who so strongly 
contrasted with him, to the private red brick dwelling, 
with the black outside shutters, the green inside blinds, 
and the black street-door up the two white steps. In the 
drawing-room of which mansion, there presently entered 
to them the most remarkable girl Mr. James Harthouse 
had ever seen. She was so constrained, and yet so care- 
less ; so reserved, and yet so watchful ; so cold and proud, 
and yet so sensitively ashamed of her husband’s braggart 
humility — from which she shrunk as if every example 
of it were a cut or a blow ; that it was quite a new sen- 
sation to observe her. In face she was no less remark- 
able than in manner. Her features were handsome ; but 
their natural play was so locked up, that it seemed impos- 


V 


HARD TIMES. 


171 


sible to guess at their genuine expression. Utterly indif- 
ferent, perfectly self-reliant, never at a loss, and yet never 
at her ease, with her figure in company with them there, 
and her mind apparently quite alone — it was of no use 
“ going in ” yet awhile to comprehend this girl, for she 
baffled all penetration. 

From the mistress of the house, the visitor glanced to 
the house itself. There was no mute sign of a woman 
in the room. No graceful little adornment, no fanciful 
little device, however trivial, anywhere expressed her in- 
fluence. Cheerless and comfortless, boastfully and dog- 
gedly rich, there the room stared at its present occupants, 
unsoftened and unrelieved by the least trace of any 
womanly occupation. As Mr. Bounderby stood in the 
midst of his household gods, so those unrelenting divini- 
ties occupied their places around Mr. Bounderby, and 
they were worthy of one another, and well matched. 

u This, sir,” said Bounderby, “ is my wife, Mrs. Boun- 
derby : Tom Gradgrind’s eldest daughter. Loo, Mr. 
James Harthouse. Mr. Harthouse has joined your fa- 
ther’s muster-roll. If he is not Tom Gradgrind’s col- 
league before long, I believe we shall at least hear of 
him in connection with one of our neighboring towns. 
You observe, Mr. Harthouse, that my wife is my junior. 
I don’t know what she saw in me to marry me, but she 
saw something in me, I suppose, or she wouldn’t have 
married me. She has lots of expensive knowledge, sir 
political and otherwise. If you want to cram for any- 
thing, I should be troubled to recommend you to a better 
adviser than Loo Bounderby.” 

To a more agreeable adviser, or one from whom he 
would be more likely to learn, Mr. Harthouse could 
never be recommended. 


172 


HARD TIMES. 


“ Come ! ” said his host. “ If you’re in the compli- 
mentary line, you’ll get on here, for you’ll meet with no 
competition. I have never been in the way of learning 
compliments myself, and I don’t profess to understand 
the art of paying ’em. In fact, despise ’em. But, your 
bringing-up was different from mine ; mine was a real 
thing, by George ! You’re a gentleman, and I don’t pre- 
tend to be one. I am Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, 
and that’s enough for me. However, though I am not 
influenced by manners and station, Loo Bounderby may 
be. She hadn’t my advantages — disadvantages you 
would call ’em, but I call ’em advantages — so you’ll not 
waste your power, I dare say.” 

“ Mr. Bounderby,” said Jem, turning with a smile to 
Louisa, “ is a noble animal in a comparatively natural 
state, quite free from the harness in which a conven- 
tional hack like myself works.” 

“ You respect Mr. Bounderby very much,” she quietly 
returned. “ It is natural that you should.” 

He was disgracefully thrown out, for a gentleman who 
had seen so much of the world, and thought, “ Now how 
am I to take this ? ” 

66 You are going to devote yourself, as I gather from 
what Mr. Bounderby has said, to the service of your 
country. You have made up your mind,” said Louisa, 
still standing before him where she had first stopped — 
in all the singular contrariety of her self-possession, and 
her being obviously very ill at ease — “ to show the na 
tion the way out of all its difficulties.” 

“ Mrs. Bounderby,” he returned, laughing, u upon my 
honor, no. I will make no such pretence to you. I have 
seen a little, here and there, up and down ; I have found 
it all to be very worthless, as everybody has, and as some 


HARO TIMES. 


178 


confess they have, and some do not ; and I am going in 
for your respected father’s opinions — really because I 
have no choice of opinions, and may as well back them as 
anything else.” 

“ Have you none of your own ? ” asked Louisa. 

a I have not so much as the slightest predilection left. 
I assure you I attach not the least importance to any 
opinions. The result of the varieties of boredom I have 
undergone, is a conviction (unless conviction is too indus- 
trious a word for the lazy sentiment I entertain on the 
subject), that any set of ideas will do just as much good 
as any other set, and just as much harm as any other 
set. There’s an English family with a charming Italian 
motto. What will be, will be. It’s the only truth 
going ! ” 

This vicious assumption of honesty in dishonesty — a 
vice so dangerous, so deadly, and so common — seemed, 
he observed, a little to impress her in his favor. He fol- 
lowed up the advantage, by saying in his pleasantest man- 
ner : a manner to which she might attach as much or as 
little meaning as she pleased : “ The side that can prove 
anything in a line of units, tens, hundreds, and thou- 
sands, Mrs. Bounderby, seems to me to afford the most 
fun, and to give a man the best chance. I am quite as 
much attached to it as if I believed it. I am quite ready 
to go in for it, to the same extent as if I believed it. 
And what more could I possibly do, if I did believe it ! ” 

“ You are a singular politician,” said Louisa. 

“ Pardon me ; I have not even that merit. We are 
the largest party in the state, I assure you, Mrs. Boun- 
derby, if we all fell out of our adopted ranks and were 
reviewed together.” 

Mr. Bounderby, who had been in danger of bursting 


174 


HARD TIMES. 


in silence, interposed here with a project for postponing 
the family dinner till half-past six, and taking Mr. James 
Harthouse in the mean time on a round of visits to the 
voting and interesting notabilities of Coketown and its 
vicinity. The round of visits was made ; and Mr. James 
Harthouse, with a discreet use of his blue coaching, came 
off triumphantly, though with a considerable accession 
of boredom. 

In the evening, he found the dinner-table laid for four, 
but they sat down only three. It was an appropriate 
occasion for Mr. Bounderby to discuss the flavor of the 
hap’orth of stewed eels he had purchased in the streets 
at eight years old ; and also of the inferior water, spe- 
cially used for laying the dust, with which he had washed 
down that repast. He likewise entertained his guest over 
the soup and fish, with the calculation that he (Bounder- 
by) had eaten in his youth at least three horses under the 
guise of polonies and saveloys. These recitals, Jem, in 
a languid manner, received with •“ charming ! ” every now 
and then ; and they probably would have decided him to 
“ go in ” for Jerusalem again to-morrow morning, had he 
been less curious respecting Louisa. 

“ Is there nothing,” he thought, glancing at her as she 
sat at the head of the table, where her youthful figure, 
small and slight, but very graceful, looked as pretty as it 
looked misplaced ; “ is there nothing that will move that 
face ? ” 

Yes ! By Jupiter, there was something, and here it 
was, in an unexpected shape ! Tom appeared. She 
changed as the door opened, and broke into a beaming 
smile. 

A beautiful smile. Mr. James Harthouse might not 

have thought so much of it, but that he had wondered so 

° 0 




HARD TIMES. 


175 


long at her impassive face. She put out her hand — a 
pretty little soft hand ; and her fingers closed upon her 
brother’s, as if she would have carried them to her lips. 

“ Ay, ay ? ” thought the visitor. u This whelp is the 
onlv creature she cares for. So, so ! ” 

The whelp was presented, and took his chair. The 
appellation was not flattering, but not unmerited. 

“ When I was your age, young Tom,” said Bounderby, 
“ I was punctual, or I got no dinner ! ” 

“ When you were my age,” returned Tom, “ you 
hadn’t a wrong balance to get right, and hadn’t to dress 
afterwards.” 

“ Never mind that now,” said Bounderby. 

“ Well, then,” grumbled Tom. “ Don’t begin with 
me.” 

“ Mrs.' Bounderby,” said Harthouse, perfectly hearing 
this under-strain as it went on ; “ your brother’s face is 
quite familiar to me. Can I have seen him abroad ? Or 
at some public school, perhaps ? ” 

“ No,” she returned, quite interested, “ he has never 
been abroad yet, and was educated here, at home. Tom, 
love, I am telling Mr. Harthouse that he never saw you 
abroad.” 

“ No such luck, sir,” said Tom. 

There was little enough in him to brighten her face, 
for he was a sullen young fellow, and ungracious in his 
manner even to her. So much the greater must have 
been the solitude of her heart, and her need of some one 
on whom to bestow it. “ So much the more is this whelp 
the only creature she has ever cared for,” thought Mr. 
James Harthouse, turning it over and over. “ So much 
the more. So much the more.” 

Both in his sister’s presence, and after she had left the 


176 


HARD TIMES. 


room, the whelp took no pains to hide his contempt for 
Mr. Bounderby, whenever he could indulge it without 
the observation of that independent man, by making wry 
faces, or shutting one eye. Without responding to these 
telegraphic communications, Mr. Harthouse encouraged 
him much in the course of the evening, and showed an 
unusual liking for him. At last, when he rose to return 
to his hotel, and was a little doubtful whether he knew 
the way by night, the whelp immediately proffered his 
services as guide, and turned out with him to escort him 
thither. 





HARD TIMES. 


177 


CHAPTER III. 

THE WHELP. 

It was very remarkable that a young gentleman who 
had been brought up under one continuous system of / 
unnatural restraint, should be a hypocrite ; but it was 
certainly the case with Tom. It was very strange that 
a young gentleman who had never been left to his own 
guidance for five consecutive minutes, should be incapa- 
ble at last of governing himself ; but so it was with Tom. 
It was altogether unaccountable that a young gentleman 
whose imagination had been strangled in his cradle, should 
be still inconvenienced by its ghost in the form of grovel- 
ling sensualities ; but such a monster, beyond all doubt, 
was Tom. 

“ Do you smoke ? ” asked Mr. James Harthouse, when 
they came to the hotel. 

“ I believe you ! ” said Tom. 

He could do no less than ask Tom up ; and Tom could 
do no less than go up. What with a cooling drink 
adapted to the weather, but not so weak as cool ; and 
what with a rarer tobacco than was to be bought in those 
parts ; Tom was soon in a highly free and easy state at 
his end of the sofa, and more than ever disposed to ad- 
mire his new friend at the other end. 

Tom blew his smoke aside, after he had been smoking 

a little while, and took an observation of his friend. 

12 


VOL. I. 


178 


HARD TIMES. 


“ He don’t seem to care about his dress,” thought Tom. 
“ and yet how capitally he does it. What an easy swell 
he is ! ” 

Mr. James Harthouse, happening to catch Tom’s eye, 
remarked that he drank nothing, and filled his glass with 
his own negligent hand. 

“Thank’ee,” said Tom. “Thank’ee. Well, Mr. Hart- 
house, I hope you have had about a dose of old Boun- 
derby to-night.” Tom said this with one eye shut up 
again, and looking over his glass knowingly, at his enter- 
tainer. 

“ A very good fellow indeed ! ” returned Mr. James 
Harthouse. 

“ You think so, don’t you ? ” said Tom. And shut up 
his eye again. 

Mr. James Harthouse smiled ; and rising from his 
end of the sofa, and lounging with his back against the 
chimney-piece, so that he stood before the empty fire- 
grate as he smoked, in front of Tom and looking down 
at him, observed : 

“ What a comical brother-in-law you are ! ” 

“What a comical brother-in-law old Bounderby is, 
I think you mean,” said Tom. 

“ You are a piece of caustic, Tom,” retorted Mr. James 
Harthouse. 

There was something so very agreeable in being so 
intimate with such a waistcoat ; in being called Tom, in 
such an intimate way, by such a voice ; in being on such 
off-hand terms so soon, with such a pair of whiskers ; 
that Tom was uncommonly pleased with himself. 

“ Oh ! I don’t care for old Bounderby,” said he, “ if 
you mean that. I have always called old Bounderby by 
the same name when I have talked about him, and I have 


HARD TIMES. 


17S 


always thought of him in the same way. I am not going 
to begin to be polite now, about old Bounderby. It would 
be rather late in the day.” 

“Don’t mind me,” returned James; “but take care 
when his wife is by, you know.” 

“ His wife ? ” said Tom. “ My sister Loo ? 0, yes ! ” 

And he laughed, and took a little more of the cooling 
drink. 

James Harthouse continued to lounge in the same 
place and attitude, smoking his cigar in his own easy 
way, and looking pleasantly at the whelp, as if he knew 
himself to be a kind of agreeable demon who had only to 
hover over him, and he must give up his whole soul if 
required. It certainly did seem that the whelp yielded 
to this influence. He looked at his companion sneak- 
ingly, he looked at him admiringly, he looked at him 
boldly, and put up one leg on the sofa. 

“ My sister Loo ? said Tom. “ She never cared for 
old Bounderby.” 

“That’s the past tense, Tom,” returned Mr. James 
Harthouse, striking the ash from his cigar with his little 
finger. “ We are in the present tense, now.” 

“Verb neuter, not to care. Indicative mood, present 
tense. First person singular, I do not care ; second per- 
son singular, thou dost not care ; third person singular, 
she does not care,” returned Tom. 

“Good! Very quaint!” said his friend. “Though 
you don’t mean it.” 

“ But I do mean it,” cried Tom. “ Upon my honor ! 
Why, you won’t tell me, Mr. Harthouse, that you 
really suppose my sister Loo does care for old Boun- 
derby.” 

“ My dear fellow,” returned the other, “ what am I 


180 


HARD TIMES. 


\ 


bound to suppose, when I find two married people living 
in harmony and happiness ? ” 

Tom had by this time got both his legs on the sofa. 
If his second leg had not been already there when he 
was called a dear fellow, he would have put it up at that 
great stage of the conversation. Feeling it necessary to 
do something then, he stretched himself out at greater 
length, and, reclining with the back of his head on the 
end of the sofa, and smoking with an infinite assumption 
of negligence, turned his common face, and not too sober 
eyes, towards the face looking down upon him so care- 
lessly yet so potently. 

“ You know our governor, Mr. Harthouse,” said Tom, 
“ and therefore you needn’t be surprised that Loo mar- 
ried old Bounderby. She never had a lover, and the 
governor proposed old Bounderby, and she took him.” 

“Very dutiful in your interesting sister,” said Mr. 
James Harthouse. 

“ Yes, but she wouldn’t have been as dutiful, and it 
would not have come off as easily,” returned the whelp, 
“ if it hadn’t been for me.” 

The tempter merely lifted his eyebrows ; but the 
whelp was obliged to go on. 

“ I persuaded her,” he said, with an edifying air of 
superiority. “ I was stuck into old Bounderby’s bank 
(where I never wanted to be), and I knew I should get 
into scrapes there, if she put old Bounderby’s pipe out ; 
so I told her my wishes, and she came into them. She 
would do anything for me. It was very game of her 
wasn’t it ? ” 

“ It was charming, Tom ! ” 

“ Not that it was altogether so important to her as it 
was to me,” continued Tom, coolly, “ because my liberty 


V 


HARD TIMES. 


181 


and comfort, and perhaps my getting on, depended on it ; 
and she had no other lover, and staying at home was like 
staying in jail — especially when I was gone. It wasn’t 
as if she gave up another lover for old Bounderby ; but 
still it was a good thing in her.” 

“ Perfectly delightful. And she gets on so placidly. 

* u Oh,” returned Tom, with contemptuous patronage, 
u she’s a regular girl. A girl can get on anywhere. 
She has settled down to the life, and she don’t mind. It 
does just as well as another. Besides, though Loo is a 
girl, she’s not a common sort of girl. She can shut her- 
self up within herself, and think — as I have often known 
her sit and watch the fire — for an hour at a stretch.” 

“ Ay, ay ? Has resources of her own,” said Hart- 
house, smoking quietly. 

“ Not so much of that as you may suppose,” returned 
Tom ; “ for our governor had her crammed with all sorts 
of dry bones and sawdust. It’s his system.” 

“ F ormed his daughter on his own model ? ” suggested 
Harthouse. 

“ His daughter ? Ah ! and everybody else. Why he 
formed Me that way,” said Tom. 

“ Impossible ! ” 

“ He did though,” said Tom, shaking his head. “ I 
mean to say, Mr. Harthouse, that when I first left home 
and went to old Bounderby’s, I was as flat as a warming- 
pan, and knew no more about life, than any oyster 
does.” 

“ Come, Tom ! I can hardly believe that. A joke’s 
a joke.” 

66 Upon my soul ! ” said the whelp. “ I am serious ; 
I am indeed ! ” He smoked with great gravity and 
dignity for a little while, and then added, in a highly 


182 


HARD TIMES. 


I 


complacent tone, “ Oh ! I have picked up a little, 
since. I don e deny that. But I have done it myself ; 
no thanks to the governor.” 

“ And your intelligent sister ? ” 

“ My intelligent sister is about where she was. She 
used to complain to me that she had nothing to fall back 
upon, that girls usually fall back upon ; and I don’t see 
how she is to have got over that since. But she don’t 
mind,” he sagaciously added, puffing at his cigar again. 
“ Girls can always get on, somehow.” 

“ Calling at the Bank yesterday evening, for Mr. 
Bounderby’s address, I found an ancient lady there, who 
seems to entertain great admiration for your sister,” 
observed Mr. James Harthouse, throwing away the last 
small remnant of the cigar he had now smoked out. 

“ Mother Sparsit ? ” said Tom. “ What ! you have 
seen her already, have you ? ” 

His friend nodded. Tom took his cigar out of his 
mouth, to shut up his eye (which had grown rather 
unmanageable) with the greater expression, and to tap 
his nose several times with his finger. 

“ Mother Sparsit’s feeling for Loo is more than admi- 
ration, I should think,” said Tom. “ Say affection and 
devotion. Mother Sparsit never set her cap at Boun- 
derby when he was a bachelor. O no ! ” 

These were the last words spoken by the whelp, before 
a giddy drowsiness came upon him, followed by complete 
oblivion. He was roused from the latter state by an 
uneasy dream of being stirred up with a boot, and also 
of a voice saying : “ Come, it’s late. Be off ! ” 

“ Well ! ” he said, scrambling from the sofa. 66 I must 
take my leave of you though. I say. Yours is very 
good tobacco. But it’s too mild.” 


HARD TIMES. 


163 


“ Yes, it’s too mild,” returned his entertainer. 

“ It’s — it’s ridiculously mild,” said Tom. “ Where’s 
the door ? Good-night ! ” 

He had another odd dream of being taken by a waiter 
through a mist, which, after giving him some trouble and 
difficulty, resolved itself into the main street, in which 
he stood alone. He then walked home pretty easily, 
though not yet free from an impression of the presence 
and influence of his new friend — as if he were lounging 
somewhere in the air, in the same negligent attitude, 
regarding him with the same look. 

The whelp went home, and went to bed. If he had 
had any sense of what he had done that night, and had 
been less of a whelp and more of a brother, he might 
have turned short on the road, might have gone down to 
the ill-smelling river that was dyed black, might have 
gone to bed in it for good and all, and have curtained his 
head forever with its filthy waters. 


\ 


i 


* 


184 


HARD TIMES. 


CHAPTER IY. 

MEN AND BROTHERS. 

“ Oh my friends, the down-trodden operatives of Coke- 
town ! Oh my friends and fellow-countrymen, the slaves 
of an iron-handed and a grinding despotism ! Oh my 
friends and fellow-sufferers, and fellow-workmen, and 
fellow-men ! I tell you that the hour is come, when we 
must rally round one another as One united power, and 
crumble into dust the oppressors that too long have bat- 
tened upon the plunder of our families, upon the sweat 
of our brows, upon the labor of our hands, upon the 
strength of our sinews, upon the God-created, glori- 
ous rights of Humanity, and upon the holy and eternal 
privileges of Brotherhood ! ” 

“ Good ! ” “ Hear, hear, hear ! ” “ Hurrah ! ” and 

other cries, arose in many voices from various parts of 
the densely crowded and suffocatingly close Hall, in 
which the orator, perched on a stage, delivered himself 
of this and what other froth and fume he had in him. 
He had declaimed , himself into a violent heat, and was 
as hoarse as he was hot. By dint of roaring at the top 
of his voice under a flaring gas-light, clenching his fists, 
knitting his brows, setting his teeth, and pounding with 
his arms, he had taken so much out of himself by this 
time, that he was brought to a stop, and called for a glass 
of water. 


HARD TIMES. 


185 


As he stood there, trying to quench his fiery face with 
his drink of water, the comparison between the orator 
and the crowd of attentive faces turned towards him, 
was extremely to his disadvantage. Judging him by 
Nature’s evidence, he was above the mass in very little 
but the stage on which he stood. . In many great respects 
he was essentially below them. He was not so honest, 
he was not so manly, he was not so good-humored ; he 
substituted cunning for their simplicity, and passion for 
their safe solid sense. An ill-made high-shouldered man, 
with lowering brows, and his features crushed into an 
habitually sour expression, he contrasted most unfavor- 
ably, even in his mongrel dress, with the great body of 
his hearers in their plain working-clothes. Strange as it 
always is to consider any assembly in the act of submis- 
sively resigning itself to the dreariness of some com- 
placent person, lord or commoner, whom three-fourths 
of it could, by no human means, raise out of the slough 
of inanity to their own intellectual level, it was partic- 
ularly strange, and it was even particularly affecting, 
to see this crowd of earnest faces, whose honesty in the 
main no competent observer free from bias could doubt, 
so agitated by such a leader. 

Good ! Hear, hear ! Hurrah ! The eagerness, both 
of attention and inattention, exhibited in all the counte- 
nances, made them a most impressive sight. There was 
no carelessness, no languor, no idle curiosity ; none of 
the many shades of indifference to be seen in all other 

s tr 

assemblies, visible for one moment there. That every 
man felt his condition to be, somehow or other, worse 
than it might be ; that every man considered it incum- 
bent on him to join the rest, towards the making of it 
better ; that every man felt his only hope to be in his 


186 


HARD TIMES. 


allying himself to the comrades by whom he was sur- 
rounded ; and that in this belief, right or wrong (unhap- 
pily wrong then), the whole of that crowd were gravely, 
deeply, faithfully in earnest ; must have been as plain to 
any one who chose to see what was there, as the bare 
beams of the roof, and the whitened brick walls. Nor 
could any such spectator fail to know in his own breast, 
that these men, through their very delusions, showed 
great qualities, susceptible of being turned to the hap- 
piest and best account ; and that to pretend (on the 
strength of sweeping axioms, howsoever cut and dried) 
that they went astray wholly without cause, and of their 
own irrational wills, was to pretend that there could be 
smoke without fire, death without birth, harvest without 
seed, anything or everything produced from nothing. 

The orator having refreshed himself, wiped his cor- 
rugated forehead from left to right several times with his 
handkerchief folded into a pad,' and concentrated all his 
revived forces in a sneer of great disdain and bitterness. 

“ But, oh my friends and brothers ! Oh men and 
Englishmen, the down-trodden operatives of Coketown ! 
What shall we say of that man — that working-man, tha 
I should find it necessary so to libel the glorious name — 
who, being practically and well acquainted with the 
grievances and wrongs of you, the injured pith and mar- 
row of this land, and having heard you, with a noble and 
majestic unanimity that will make Tyrants tremble, 
resolve for to subscribe to the funds of the United Ag- 
gregate Tribunal, and to abide by the injunctions issued 
by that body for your benefit, whatever they may be — 
what, I ask you, will you say of that working-man, since 
such I must acknowledge him to be, who, at such a time, 
deserts his post, and sells his flag ; who, at such a time, 


HARD TIMES. 


t- 


187 


turns a traitor and a craven and a recreant ; who, at such 
a time, is not ashamed to make to you the dastardly and 
humiliating avowal that he will hold himself aloof, and 
will not be one of those associated in the gallant stand 
for F reedom and for Fight ? ” 

The assembly was divided at this point. There were 
some groans and hisses, but the general sense of honor 
was much too strong for the condemnation of a man 
unheard. “ Be sure you’re right, Slackbridge ! ” “ Put 

him up ! ” “ Let’s hear him ! ” Such things were said 

on many sides. Finally, one strong voice called out, 
u Is the man heer ? If the man’s heer, Slackbridge, 
let’s hear the man himseln, ’stead o’ yo.” Which was 
received with a round of applause. 

Slackbridge, the orator, looked about him with a with- 
ering smile ; and, holding out his right hand at arm’s 
length (as the manner of all Slackbridges is), to still 
the thundering sea, waited until there was a profound 
silence. 

“ Oh my friends and fellow-men ! ” said Slackbridge 
then, shaking his head with violent scorn, “ I do not won- 
der that you, the prostrate sons of labor, are incredulous 
of the existence of such a man. But he who sold his 
birthright for a mess of pottage existed, and Judas 
Iscariot existed, and Castlereagh existed, and this man 
exists ! ” 

Here, a brief press and confusion near the stage ended 
in the man himself standing at the orators side before 
the concourse. He was pale and a little moved in the 
face — his lips especially showed it ; but he stood quiet, 
with his left hand at his chin, waiting to be heard. 
There was a chairman to regulate the proceedings, and 
this functionary now took the case into his own hands. 


188 


i 


HARD TIMES. 


“ My friends/’ said he, “ by virtue o’ my office as your 
president, I ashes o’ our friend Slackbridge, who may be 
a little over hetter in this business, to take his seat, 
whiles this man Stephen Blackpool is heern. You all 
know this man Stephen Blackpool. You know him 
awlung o’ his misfort’ns, and his good name.” 

With that the chairman shook him frankly by the 
hand, and sat down again. Slackbridge likewise sat 
down, wiping his hot forehead — always from left to 
right, and never the reverse way. 

“ My friends,” Stephen began, in the midst of a dead 
calm ; “ I ha’ hed what’s been spok’n o’me, and ’tis lickly 
that I sha’n’t mend it. But I’d liefer you’d beam the 
truth concernin’ myseln, fro my lips than fro onny other 
man’s though I never cud’n speak afore so monny, wi’out 
bein moydert and muddled.” 

Slackbridge shook his head as if he would shake it off, 
in his bitterness. 

“ I’m th’ one single Hand in Bounderby’s mill, o’ a’ the 
men theer, as don’t coom in wi’ th’ proposed reflations. 
I canna’ coom in wi’ ’em. My friends, I doubt their doin’ 
yo onny good. Bicker they’ll do yo hurt.” 

Slackbridge laughed, folded his arms, and frowned sar- 
castically. 

66 But ’ta’n’t sommucli for that as I stands out. If that 
were aw, I’d coom in wi’ th’ rest. But I ha’ my reasons 
— mine, yo see — for being hindered ; not on’y now, but 
awlus — awlus — - life long ! ” 

Slackbridge jumped up and stood beside him, gnash- 
ing and tearing. “ Oh my friends, what but this did I 
tell you ? Oh my fellow-countrymen, what warning but 
this did I give you ? And how shows this recreant con- 
duct in a man on whom unequal laws are known to have 


HARD TIMES. 


189 


fallen heavy ? Oh you Englishmen, I ask you how does 
this subornation show in one of yourselves, who is thus 
consenting to his own undoing and to yours, and to your 
children’s and your children’s children’s ? ” 

There was some applause, and some crying of Shame 
upon the man ; but the greater part of the audience were 
quiet. They looked at Stephen’s worn face, rendered 
more pathetic by the homely emotions it evinced ; and, 
in the kindness of their nature, they were more sorry 
than indignant. 

“ ’Tis this Delegate’s trade for t’ speak,” said Stephen, 
“ an he’s paid for’t, an he knows his work. Let him 
keep to’t. Let him give no heed to what I ha had’n to 
bear. That’s not for him. That’s not for nobbody but 
me.” 

There was a propriety, not to say a dignity, in these 
words, that made the hearers yet more quiet and atten- 
tive. The same strong voice called out, “ Slackbridge, 
let the man be heern, and howd thee tongue ! ” Then 
the place was wonderfully still. 

“My brothers,” said Stephen, whose low voice was 
distinctly heard, “ and my fellow-workmen — for that yo 
are to me, though not, as I knows on, to this delegate 
heer — I ha but a word to sen, and I could sen nommore 
if I was to speak till Strike o’ day. I know weel, aw 
what’s afore me. I know weel that yo are aw resolve to 
ha nommore ado wi’ a man who is not wi’ yo in this 
matther. I know weel that if I was a-lyin’ parisht i’ th’ 
road, yo’d feel it right to pass me by, as a forrenner and 
stranger. What I ha getn, I mun mak th’ best on.” 

“ Stephen Blackpool,” said the chairman, rising, “ think 
on’t agen. Think on’t once agen, lad, afore thou’rt 
shunned by aw owd friends.” 


190 


HARD TIMES. 


There was an universal murmur to the same effect, 
though no man articulated a word. Every eye was fixed 
on Stephen’s face. To repent of his determination, would 
be to take a load from all their minds. He looked around 
him, and knew that it was so. Not a grain of anger 
with them was in his heart ; he knew them, far below 
their surface weaknesses and misconceptions, as no one 
but their fellow-laborer could. 

“ I ha thowt on’t above a bit, sir. I simply canna coom 
in. I mun go th’ way as lays afore me. I mun tak my 
leave o’ aw heer.” 

He made a sort of reverence to them by holding up 
his arms, and stood for the moment in that attitude : not 
speaking until they slowly dropped at his sides. 

“ Monny’s the pleasant word as soom heer has spok’n 
wi’ me ; monny’s the face I see heer, as I first seen when 
I were yoong and lighter heart’n than now. I ha never 
had no fratch afore, sin ever I were born, wi’ any o’ my 
like Gonnows I ha’ none now that’s o’ my makin’. 
Yo’ll ca’ me traitor and that — yo I mean t’ say,” address- 
ing Slackbridge, “ but ’tis easier to ca’ than mak’ out. So 
let be.” 

* 

He had moved away a pace or two to come down from 
the platform, when he remembered something he had not 
said, and returned again. 

“ Haply,” he said, turning his furrowed face slowly 
about, that he might as it were individually address the 
whole audience, those both near and distant; “ haply, 
when this question has been tak’n up and discoosed, 
there’ll be a threat to turn out if I’m let to work among 
yo. I hope I shall die ere ever such a time cooms, and 
I shall work solitary among yo unless it cooms — truly, 
I mun do’t, my friends ; no to brave yo, but to live. I 


HARD TIMES. 


191 


ha nobbut work to live by ; and wheerever can I go, I 
who ha worked sin I were no heighth at aw, in Coketown 
heer ? I mak’ no complaints o’ bein turned- to the wa’, 
o’ being outcasten and overlooken fro this time forrard, 
but I hope I shall be let to work. If there is any right 
for me at aw, my friends, I think ’tis that.” 

Not a word was spoken. Not a sound was audible in 
the building, but the slight rustle of men moving a little 
apart, all along the centre of the room, to open a means 
of passing out, to the man with whom they had all bound 
themselves to renounce companionship. Looking at no 
one, and going his way with a lowly steadiness upon him 
that asserted nothing and sought nothing, Old Stephen, 
with all his troubles on his head, left the scene. 

Then Slackbridge, who had kept his oratorical arm 
extended during the going out, as if he were repressing 
with infinite solicitude and by a wonderful moral power 
the vehement passions of the multitude, applied himself 
to raising their spirits. Had not the Roman Brutus, oh 
my British countrymen, condemned his son to death ; and 
had not the Spartan mothers, oh my soon to be victorious 
friends, driven their flying children on the points of their 
enemies’ swords ? Then was it not the sacred duty of 
the men of Coketown, with forefathers before them, an 
admiring world in company with them, and a posterity to 
come after them, to hurl out traitors from the tents they 
had pitched in a sacred and a Godlike cause? Th 
winds of Heaven answered Yes ; and bore Yes, east 
west, north, and south. And consequently three cheer3 
for the United Aggregate Tribunal ! 

Slackbridge acted as fugleman, and gave the time. 
The multitude of doubtful faces (a little conscience- 
stricken) brightened at the sound, and took it up. Pri- 




192 


HARD TIMES. 


vate feeling must yield to the common cause. Hurrah ! 
The roof yet vibrated with the cheering, when the assem- 
bly dispersed. 

Thus easily did Stephen Blackpool fall into the lone- 
liest of lives, the life of solitude among a familiar crowd. 
The stranger in the land who looks into ten thousand 
faces for some answering look and never finds it, is in 
cheering society as compared with him who passes ten 
averted faces daily, that were once the countenances of 
friends. Such experience was to be Stephen’s now, in 
every waking moment of his life ; at his work, on his 
way to it and from it, at his door, at his window, every- 
where. By general consent, they even avoided that side 
of the street on which he habitually walked ; and left it, 
of all the working-men, to him only. 

He had been for many years a quiet silent man, asso- 
ciating but little with other men, and used to companion- 
ship with his own thoughts. He had never known before 
the strength of the want in his heart for the frequent 
recognition of a nod, a look, a word ; or the immense 
amount of relief that had been poured into it by drops, 
through such small means. It was even harder than he 
could have believed possible, to separate in his own con- 
science his abandonment by all his fellows, from a base- 
less sense of shame and disgrace. 

The first four days of his endurance were days so long 
and heavy, that he began to be appalled by the prospect 
before him. Not only did he see no Bachael all the 
time, but he avoided every chance of seeing her ; for, 
although he knew that the prohibition did not yet for- 
mally extend to the women working in the factories, he 
found that some of them with whom he was acquainted 
were changed to him, and he feared to try others, and 


HARD TIMES. 


193 


■A 

dreaded that Rachael might be even singled out from the 
rest if she were seen in his company. So, he had been 
quite alone during the four days, and had spoken to no 
one, when, as he was leaving his work at night, a young 
man of a very light complexion accosted him in the 
street. 

\ 

“ Your name’s Blackpool, a’n’t it ? ” said the young 
man. 

Stephen colored to find himself with his hat in his 
hand, in his gratitude for being spoken to, or in the sud- 
denness of it, or both. He made a feint of adjusting the 
lining, and said “ Yes.” 

“ You are the Hand they have sent to Coventry, I 
mean ? ” said Bitzer, the very light young man in ques- 
tion. 

Stephen answered “ Yes,” again. 

“ I supposed so, from their all appearing to keep away 
from you. Mr. Bounderby wants to speak to you. You 
know his house, don’t you ? ” 

Stephen said “ Yes,” again. 

“ Then go straight up there, will you ? ” said Bitzer. 

“ You’re expected, and have only to tell the servant it’s 
you. I belong to the Bank ; so, if you go straight up 
without me (I was sent to fetch you), you’ll save me a 
walk.” 

Stephen, whose way had been in the contrary direc- 
tion, turned about, and betook himself as in duty bound 
to the red brick castle of the giant Bounderby. 


VOL. I. 


13 


\ 


HARD TIMES. 


194 


CHAPTER V. 

MEN AND MASTERS. 

“ Well, Stephen/’ said Bounderby, in his windy man- 
ner, “ what’s this I hear ? What have these pests of the 
earth being doing to you ? Come in, and speak up.” 

It was into the drawing-room that he was thus bidden. 
A tea-table was set out ; and Mr. Bounderby’s young 
wife, and her brother, and a great gentleman from Lon- 
don, were present. To whom Stephen made his obei- 
sance, closing the door and standing near it, with his hat 
in his hand. 

“ This is the man I was telling you about, Harthouse,” 
said Mr. Bounderby. The gentleman he addressed, who 
was talking to Mrs. Bounderby on the sofa, got up, say- 
ing in an indolent way, “ Oh really ? ” and dawdled to 
the hearth-rug where Mr. Bounderby stood. 

“ Now,” said Bounderby, “ speak up ! ” 

After the four days he had passed, this address fell 
rudely and discordantly on Stephen’s ear. Besides being 
a rough handling of his wounded mind, it seemed to as- 
sume that he really was the self-interested deserter he 
had been called. 

“ Wliat were it, sir,” said Stephen, “ as yo were pleased 
to want wi’ me ? ” 

“ Why, I have told you,” returned Bounderby. “ Speak 


HARD TIMES. 


195 


up like a man, since you are a man, and tell us about 
yourself and this Combination.” 

“ Wi’ yor pardon, sir,” said Stephen Blackpool, “ I 
ha’ nowt to sen about it.” 

Mr. Bounderby, who was always more or less like a 
Wind, finding something in his way here, began to blow 
at it directly. 

“ Now, look here, Harthouse,” said he, “ here’s a speci- 
men of ’em. When this man was here once before, I 
warned this man against the mischievous strangers who 
are always about — and w T ho ought to be hanged wherever 
they are found — and I told this man that he was going 
in the wrong direction. Now, would you believe it, that 
although they have put this mark upon him, he is such a 
slave to them still, that he’s afraid to open his lips about 
them ? ” 

u I sed as I had nowt to sen, sir ; not as I was fearfo 
o’ openin’ my lips.” 

“ You said. Ah ! I know what you said ; more than 
that, I know what you mean, you see. Not always the 
same thing, by the Lord Harry ! Quite different things. 
You had better tell us at once, that that fellow Slack- 
bridge is not in the town, stirring up the people to 
mutiny ; and that he is not a regular qualified leader of 
the people : that is, a most confounded scoundrel. You 
had better tell us so at once ; you can’t deceive me. 
You want to tell us so. Why don’t you ? ” 

“ I’m as sooary as yo, sir, when the people’s leaders is 
bad,” said Stephen, shaking his head. “ They taks such 
as offers. Haply ’tis na’ the sma’est o’ their misfortuna 
when they can get no better.” 

The wind began to get boisterous. 

“Now, you’ll think this pretty well, Harthouse,” said 


196 


HARD TIMES. 


Mr. Bounderby. “ You’ll think this tolerably strong, 
You'll say, upon my soul this is a tidy specimen of what 
my friends have to deal with ; but this is nothing, sir ! 
You shall hear me ask this man a question. Pray, Mr. 
Blackpool ” — wind springing up very fast — u may I 
take the liberty of asking you how it happens that you 
refused to be in this Combination ? ” 

“ How ’t happens ? ” 

“ Ah ! ” said Mr. Bounderby, with his thumbs in the 
arms of his coat, and jerking his head and shutting his 
eyes in confidence with the opposite wall : “ how it hap- 
pens.” 

“ I’d leefer not coom to’t, sir ; but sin you put th’ 
question — an not want’n t’ be ill-manner’n — I'll answer. 
I ha passed a promess.” 

“ Not to me, you know,” said Bounderby. (Gusty 
weather with deceitful calms. One now prevailing.) 

“ O no, sir. Not to yo.” 

“ As for me, any consideration for me has had just 
nothing at all to do with it,” said Bounderby, still in con- 
fidence with the wall. “ If only Josiah Bounderby of 
Coketown had been in question, you would have joined 
and made no bones about it ? ” 

“ Why yes, sir. ’Tis true.” 

“ Though he knows,” said Mr. Bounderby, now blowing 
a gale, “ that these are a set of rascals and rebels whom 
transportation is too good for ! Now, Mr. Harthouse, 
you have been knocking about in the world some time. 
Did you ever meet with anything like that man out of 
this blessed country ? ” And Mr. Bounderby pointed 
him out for inspection, with an angry finger. 

“ Nay, ma’am,” said Stephen Blackpool, stanchly pro- 
testing against the words that had been used, and in- 


HARD TIMES. 


197 


stinctively addressing himself to Louisa, alter glancing 
at her face. “ Not rebels, nor yet rascals. Nowt o’ th’ 
kind, ma’am, nowt o’ th’ kind. They’ve not doon me a 
kindness, ma’am, as I know and feel. But there’s not a 
dozen men amoong ’em, ma’am' — a dozen? Not six — 
but what believes as he has doon his duty by the rest 
and by himseln. God forbid as I, that ha known, and 
had’n experience o’ these men aw my life, — I, that lia’ 
ett’n an droonken wi’ em, an seet’n wi’ em, and toil’n 
wi’ em, and lov’n ’em, should fail fur to stan by ’em wi’ 
the truth, let ’em ha doon to me what they may ! ” 

He spoke with the rugged earnestness of his place and 
character — deepened perhaps by a proud consciousness 
that he was faithful to his class under all their mistrust ; 
but he fully remembered where he was, and did not even 
raise his voice. 

“ No, ma’am, no. They’re true to one another, faithfo’ 
to one another, fectionate to one another, e’en to death. 
Be poor amoong ’em, be sick amoong ’em, grieve amoong 
’em for onny o’ th’ monny causes that carries grief to the 
poor man’s door, an they’ll be tender wi’ yo, gentle wi’ 
yo, comfortable wi’ yo, Chrisen wi’ yo. Be sure o’ that, 
ma’am. They’d be riven to bits, ere ever they’d be dif- 
ferent.” 

“ In short,” said Mr. Bounderby, “ it’s because they 
are so full of virtues that they have turned you adrift. 
Go through with it while you are about it. Out with 
t.” 

“ How ’tis, ma’am,” resumed Stephen, appearing still to 
find his natural refuge in Louisa’s face, “ that what is 
6est in ns fok, seems to turn us most to trouble an mis- 
c ort’n an mistake, I dunno. But ’tis so. I know ’tis, as 
T know the heavens is over me ahint the smoke. We’re 


198 


HARD TIMES. 


patient too, an wants in general to do right. An’ I canna 
think the fawt is aw wi’ us.” 

“ Now, my friend,” said Mr. Bounderby, whom he 
could not have exasperated more, quite unconscious of it 
though he was, than by seeming to appeal to any one 
else, “ if you will favor me with your attention for half 
minute, I should like to have a word or two with you. 
You said just now, that you had nothing to tell us about 
this business. You are quite sure of that before we go 
any further ? ” 

“ Sir, I am sure on’t.” 

“ Here’s a gentleman from London present,” Mr. Boun- 
derby made a back-handed point at Mr. James Iiarthouse 
with his thumb, “ a Parliament gentleman. I should like 
him to hear a short bit of dialogue between you and me, 
instead of taking the substance of it — for I know pre- 
cious well, beforehand, what it will be ; nobody knows 
better than I do, take notice ! — instead of receiving it 
on trust, from my mouth.” 

Stephen bent his head to the gentleman from London, 
and showed a rather more troubled mind than usual. He 
turned his eyes involuntarily to his former refuge, but at 
a look from that quarter (expressive though instantane- 
ous) he settled them on Mr. Bounderby ’s face. 

“Now, what do you complain of?” asked Mr. Boun- 
derby. 

“ I ha’ not coom here, sir,” Stephen reminded him, “ to 
complain. I coom for that I were sent for.” 

“ What,” repeated Mr. Bounderby, folding his arms, 
do you people, in a general wa), complain of? ” 
Stephen looked at him with some little irresolution for 
a moment, and then seemed to make up his mind. 

“ Sir, I were never good at showin o’t, though I ha 


HARD TIMES. 


199 


had’n my share in feeling o’t. ’Deed we are in a muddle, 
sir. Look round town — so rich as ’tis — and see the 
numbers o’ people as has been broughten into bein heer, 
fur to weave, an to card, an to piece out a livin’, aw the 
same one way, somehows, twixt their cradles and their 
graves. Look how we live, an wheer we live, an in what 
numbers, an by what chances, an’ wi’ what sameness ; 
and look how the mills is awlus a-goin, and how they 
never works us no nigher to ony dis’ant object — ceptin 
awlus, Death. Look how you considers of us, an writes 
of us, an talks of us, an goes up wi’ yor deputations to 
Secretaries o’ State ’bout us, and how yo are awlus 
right, and how we are awlus wrong, and never had’n no 
reason in us sin ever we were born. Look how this ha 
growen an growen, sir, bigger an bigger, broader an 
broader, harder an harder, fro year to year, fro genera- 
tion unto generation. Who can look on’t, sir, and fairly 
tell a man ’tis not a muddle ? ” 

✓ 

“ Of course,” said Mr. Bounderby. “ Now perhaps 
you’ll let the gentleman know, how you would set this 
muddle (as you’re so fond of calling it) to rights.” 

“ I donno, sir. I canna be expecten to’t. ’Tis not me 
as should be looken to for that, sir. ’Tis them as is put 
ower me, and ower aw the rest of us. What do they tak 
upon themseln, sir, if not to do’t ? ” 

“ I’ll tell you something towards it, at any rate,” re- 
turned Mr. Bounderby. “We will make an example of 
half a dozen Slackbridges. We’ll indict the blackguards 
for felony, and get ’em shipped off to penal settlements.” 
Stephen gravely shook his head. 

“ Don’t tell me we won’t, man,” said Mr. Bounderby, 
by this time blowing a hurricane, “ because we will, I 
tell you ! ” 


200 


HARD TIMES. 


“ Sir,” returned Stephen, with the quiet confidence of 
absolute certainty, “ if yo was t’ tak a hundred Slack- 
bridges — aw as there is, and aw the number ten times 
towd — an was t’ sew ’em up in separate sacks, an sink 
em in the deepest ocean as were made ere ever dry land 
coom to be, yo’d leave the muddle just wheer ’tis. Mis- 
cheevous strangers ! ” said Stephen, with an anxious 
smile ; “ when ha we not heern, I am sure, sin ever we 
can call to mind, o’ th’ misclieevous strangers ! ’Tis not 
by them the trouble’s made, sir. ’Tis not wi’ them\ com- 
mences. I ha no favor for em — I ha no reason to favor 
’em — but ’tis hopeless and useless to dream o’ takin 
them fro their trade, ’stead o’ takin their trade fro them ! 
Aw that’s now about me in this room were heer afore I 
coom, and will be heer when I am gone. Put that clock 
aboard a ship an pack it off to Norfolk Island, an the 
time will go on just the same. So ’tis wi’ Slackbridge 
every bit.” 

Reverting for a moment to his former refuge, he ob- 
served a cautionary movement of her eyes towards the 
door. Stepping back, he put his hand upon the lock. 
But he had not spoken out of his own will and desire ; 
and he felt it in his heart a noble return for his late in- 
jurious treatment to be faithful to the last to those who 
had repudiated him. He stayed to finish what was in 
his mind. 

“ Sir, I canna, wi’ my little learning an my commoi 
way, tell the genelman what will better aw this — 
though some working men o’ this town could, above my 
powers — but I can tell him what I know will never 
do’t. The strong hand will never do’t. Yict’ry and 
triumph will never do’t. Agreeing fur to mak one side 
unnat’rally awlus and forever right, and toother side 


HARD TIMES. 


•201 


unnaturally awlus and forever wrong, will never, never 
do’t. Nor yet lettin alone will never do’t. Let thou- 
sands upon thousands alone, aw leadin the like lives and 
aw faw’en into the like muddle, and they will be as one, 
and yo will be as anoother, wi’ a black unpassable world 
betwixt yo, just as long or short a time as sitcli-like 
misery can last. Not drawin nigh to fok, wi’ kindness 
and patience an cheery ways, that so draws nigh to one 
another in their monny troubles, and so cherishes one 
another in their distresses wi’ what they need themseln 
— like, I humbly believe, as no people the genelman ha 
seen in aw his travels can beat — will never do’t till th 
Sun turns t’ ice. Most o’ aw, ratin ’em as so much 
Power, and reg’latin ’em as if they was figures in a 
soom, or machines : wi’out loves and likens, wi’out mem- 
ories and inclinations, wi’out souls to weary and souls to 
hope — when aw goes quiet, draggin on wi’ ’em as if 
they’d nowt o’ th’ kind, an when aw goes onquiet, re- 
proachin ’em for their want o’ sitch humanly feelins in 
their dealins wi’ yo — this will never do’t, sir, till God’s 
work is onmade.” 

Stephen stood with the open door in his hand, waiting 
to know if anything more were expected of him. 

“ Just stop a moment,” said Mr. Bounderby, exces- 
sively red in the face. “ I told you, the last time you 
were here with a grievance, that you had better turn 
about and come out of that. And I also told you, if 
} ou remember, that I was up to the gold spoon look-out.” 

“ I were not up to’t myseln, sir ; I do assure yo.” 

“ Now it’s clear to me,” said Mr. Bounderby, “ that 
you are one of those chaps who have always got a griev- 
ance. And you go about, sowing it and raising crops. 
That’s the business of your life, my friend.” 


202 


HARD TIMES. 


Stephen shook his head, mutely protesting that indeed 
he had other business to do for his life. 

“ You are such a waspish, raspish, ill-conditioned chap, 
you see,” said Mr. Bounderby, “ that even your own 
Union, the men who know you best, will have nothing to 
do with you. I never thought those fellows could be 
right in anything ; but I tell you what ! I so far go along 
with them for a novelty, that I’ll have nothing to do with 
you either.” 

Stephen raised his eyes quickly to his face. 

“ You can finish off what you’re at,” said Mr. Boun 
derby, with a meaning nod, “ and then go elsewhere.” 

“ Sir, yo know weel,” said Stephen, expressively 
“ that if I canna get work wi’ yo, I canna get it else- 
wheer.” 

The reply was, “ What I know, I know ; and wha'<. 
you know, you know. I have no more to say about it.” 

Stephen glanced at Louisa again, but her eyes were 
raised to his no more ; therefore, with a sigh, and saying, 
barely above his breath, “Heaven help u b w in this 
world ! ” he departed. 


HARD TIMES. 


203 


CHAPTER VI. 

FADING AWAY. 

It was falling dark when Stephen came out of Mr. 
Bounderby’s house. The shadows of night had gathered 
so fast, that he did not look about him when he closed 
the door, but plodded straight along the street. Nothing 
was further from his thoughts than the curious old woman 
he had encountered on his previous visit to the same 
house, when he heard a step behind him that he knew, 
and, turning, saw her in Racliaers company. 

He saw Rachael first, as he had heard her only. 

“ Ah Rachael, my dear ! Missus, thou wi’ her ! ” 

“ Well, and now you are surprised to be sure, and with 
reason I must say,” the old woman returned. “ Here 
I am again, you see.” 

u But how wi’ Rachael ? ” said Stephen, falling into 
their step, walking between them, and looking from the 
one to the other. 

“ Why, I come to be with this good lass pretty much 
as I came to be with you,” said the old woman, cheer- 
fully, taking the reply upon herself. “ My visiting-time 
is later this year than usual, for I have been rather 
troubled with shortness of breath, and so put it off till 
the weather was fine and warm. For the same reason 
I don’t make all my journey in one day, but divide it 
into two days, and get a bed to-night at the Travellers’ 
Coffee House down by the railroad (a nice, clean house), 


204 


HARD TIMES. 


and go back Parliamentary, at six in the morning. Well, 
but what has this to do with this good lass, says you ? 
I’m going to tell you. I have heard of Mr. Bounderby 
being married. I read it in the paper, where it looked 
grand — oh, it looked fine ! ” the old woman dwelt on it 
with strange enthusiasm: “ and I want to see his wife. 
I have never seen her yet. Now, if you’ll believe me, 
she hasn’t come out of that house since noon to-day. So 
not to give her up too easily, I was waiting about, a little 
last bit more, when I passed close to this good lass two 
or three times ; and her face being so friendly I spoke to 
her, and she spoke to me. There ! ” said the old woman 
to Stephen, “ you can make all the rest out for yourself 
now, a deal shorter than I can, I dare say ! ” 

Once again, Stephen had to conquer an instinctive pro- 
pensity to dislike this old Woman, though her manner was 
as honest and simple as a manner possibly could be. 
With a gentleness that was as natural to him as he knew 
it to be to Rachael, he pursued the subject that interested 
her in her old age. 

“ Well, missus,” said he, “ I ha seen the lady, and she 
were yoong and hansom. Wi’ fine dark thinkin eyes, 
and a still way, Rachael, as I ha never seen the like on.” 

“ Young and handsome. Yes ! ” cried the old woman, 
quite delighted. “ As bonny as a rose ! And what a 
happy wife ! ” 

“ Aye, missus, I suppose she be,” said Stephen. Bu 
with a doubtful glance at Rachael. 

“ Suppose she be ? She must be. She’s your mas- 
ter’s wife,” returned the old woman. 

Stephen nodded assent. “ Though as to my master,” 
said lie, glancing again at Rachael, “not master onny 
more. That’s aw enden twixt him and me.” 


HARD TIMES. 


205 


“ Have you left his work, Stephen ? ” asked Rachael, 
anxiously and quickly. 

“ Why, Rachael,” he replied, “ whether I ha lef ’n his 
work, or whether his work ha lef’n me, cooms t’ th’ 
same. His work and me are parted. ‘Tis as weel so — 
better, I were thinkin when yo coom up wi’ me. It 
would ha brought’n trouble upon trouble if I had stayed 
theer. Haply ’tis a kindness to monny that I go ; haply 
’tis a kindness to myseln ; anyways it mun be done. I 
mun turn my face fro Coketown fur th’ time, and seek a 
fort’n, dear, by beginnin fresh.” 

“ Where will you go, Stephen ? ” 

“ I donno t’ night,” said he, lifting off his hat, and 
smoothing his thin hair with the flat of his hand. “ But 
I’m not goin’ t’night, Rachael, nor yet t’morrow. Tan’t 
easy overmuch, t’ know wlieer t’ turn, but a good heart 
will coom to me.” 

Herein, too, the sense of even thinking unselfishly 
aided him. Before he had so much as closed Mr. Boun- 
derby’s door, he had reflected that at least his being 
obliged to go away was good for her, as it would save 
her from the chance of being brought into question for 
not withdrawing from him. Though it would cost him 
a hard pang to leave her, and though he could think of 
no similar place in which his condemnation would not 
pursue him, perhaps it was almost a relief to be forced 
away from the endurance of the last four days, even to 
unknown difficulties and distresses. 

So he said, with truth, “ I’m more leetsome, Rachael, 
under’t, than I couldn ha believed.” It was not her part 
to make his burden heavier. She answered with her 
comforting smile, and the three walked on together. 

Age, especially when it strives to be self-reliant and 


206 


HARD TIMES. 


cheerful, finds much consideration among the poor. The 
old woman was so decent and contented, and made so 
light of her infirmities, though they had increased upon 
her since her former interview with Stephen, that they 
both took an interest in her. She was too sprightly to 
dlow of their walking at a slow pace on her account, but 
she was very grateful to be talked to, and very willing 
to talk to any extent : so, when they came to their part 
of the town, she was more brisk and vivacious than 
ever. 

“ Coom to my poor place, missus,” said Stephen, “ and 
tak’ a coop o’ tea. Rachael will coom then ; and arter- 
wards I’ll see thee safe t’ thy Travellers’ lodgin’. ’T may 
be long, Rachael, ere ever I ha th’ chance o’ thy coom- 
pany agen.” 

They complied, and the three went on to the house 
where he lodged. When they turned into a narrow 
street, Stephen glanced at his window with a dread that 
always haunted his desolate home ; but it was open, as 
he had left it, and no one was there. The evil spirit of 
his life had flitted away again, months ago, and he had 
heard no more of her since. The only evidences of her 
last return now, were the scantier movables in his room, 
and the grayer hair upon his head. 

He lighted a candle, set out his little tea-board, got hot 
water from below, and brought in small portions of tea 
nd sugar, a loaf, and some butter, from the nearest shop. 
The bread was new and crusty, the butter fresh, and the 
sugar lump, of course — in fulfilment of the standard 
testimony of the Coke town magnates, that these people 
lived like princes, sir. Rachael made the tea (so large 
a party necessitated the borrowing of a cup), and the 
visitor enjoyed it mightily. It was the first glimpse of 


HARD TIMES. 


207 


sociality the host had had for many days. He too, with 
the world a wide heath before him, enjoyed the meal — 
again in corroboration of the magnates, as exemplifying 
the utter want of calculation on the part of these people, sir 
44 I ha never thowt yet, missus,” said Stephen, a o 
askin’ thy name.” 

The old lady announced herself as “ Mrs. Pegler.” 

44 A widder, I think ? ” said Stephen. 

44 Oh, many long years ! ” Mrs. Pegler’s husband 
(one of the best on record) was already dead, by Mrs. 
Pegler’s calculation, when Stephen was born. 

44 ’Twere a bad job too, to lose so good a one,” said 
Stephen. 44 Onny children ? ” 

Mrs. Pegler’s cup, rattling against her saucer as she 
held it, denoted some nervousness on her part. 44 No,” 
she said. 4 Not now, not now.” 

“ Dead, Stephen,” Pachael softly hinted. 

44 I’m sooary I ha’ spok’n on’t,” said Stephen. 44 I ought 
t’ hadn in my mind as I might touch a sore place. I — 
I blame myseln.” 

While he excused himself, the old lady’s cup rattled 
more and more. 44 1 had a son,” she said, curiously dis- 
tressed, and not by any of the usual appearances of sor- 
row ; 44 and he did well, wonderfully well. But he is 
not to be spoken of if you please. He is ” — Putting 
down her cup, she moved her hands as if she would have 
added, by her action, 44 dead ! ” Then she said, aloud, 
I have lost him.” 

Stephen had not yet got the better of his having given 
the old lady pain, when his landlady came stumbling up 
the narrow stairs, and calling him to the door, whispered 
in his ear. Mrs. Pegler was by no means deaf, for she 
caught a word as it was uttered. 


208 


HARD TIMES. 


u Bounderby ! ” she cried, in a suppressed voice, start- 
ing up from the table. “ Ob bide me ! Don’t let me be 
seen for the world. Don’t let him come up till I’ve got 
away. Pray, pray ! ” She trembled, and was exces- 
sively agitated ; getting behind Rachael, when Rachae 1 
tried to reassure her ; and not seeming to know what she 
was about. 

“ But hearken, missus, hearken ; ” said Stephen, as- 
tonished, “ ’Tisn’t Mr. Bounderby ; ’tis his wife. Yor 
not fearfo’ o’ her. Yo was hey-go-mad about her, but an 
hour sin.” 

“ But are you sure it’s the lady, and not the gentle- 
man ? ” she asked, still trembling. 

“ Certain sure ! ” 

“ Well then, pray don’t speak to me, nor yet take any 
notice of me,” said the old woman. “ Let me be quite 
to myself in this corner.” 

Stephen nodded ; looking to Rachael for an explana- 
tion, which she was quite unable to give him ; took the 
candle, went down-stairs, and in a few moments returned, 
lighting Louisa into the room. She was followed by the 
whelp. 

Rachael had risen, and stood apart with her shawl and 
bonnet in her hand, when Stephen, himself profoundly 
astonished by this visit, put the candle on the table. 
Then he too stood, with his doubled hand upon the table 
near it, waiting to be addressed. 

For the first time in her life, Louisa had come int 
one of the dwellings of the Coketown hands ; for the 
first time in her life, she was face to face with anything 
like individuality in connection with them. She knew 
of their existence by hundreds and by thousands. She 
knew what results in work a given number of them 


HARD TIMES. 


209 


would produce, in a given space of time. She knew 
them in crowds passing to and from their nests, like ants 
or beetles. But she knew from her reading infinitely 
more of the ways of toiling insects than of these toiling 
men and women. 

Something to be worked so much and paid so much, 
and there ended ; something to be infallibly settled by 
laws of supply and demand ; something that blundered 
against those laws, and floundered into difficulty ; some- 
thing that was a little pinched when wheat was dear, 
and over-ate itself when wneat was cheap ; something 
that increased at such a rate of percentage, and yielded 
such another percentage of crime, and such another per- 
centage of pauperism ; something wholesale, of which 
vast fortunes were made ; something that occasionally 
rose like a sea, and did some harm and waste (chiefly to 
itself), and fell again; this she knew the Coketown 
Hands to be. But, she had scarcely thought more of 
separating them into units, than of separating the sea 
itself into its component drops. 

She stood for some moments looking round the room. 
From the few chairs, the few books, the common prints, 
and the bed, she glanced to the two women, and to Ste- 
phen. 

“I have come to speak to you, in consequence of 
what passed just now. I should like to be serviceable 
o you, if you will let me. Is this your wife ? ” 

Rachael raised her eyes, and they sufficiently an- 
swered no, and dropped again. 

“ I remember,” said Louisa, reddening at her mistake ; 
'* I recollect, now, to have heard your domestic misfor- 
tunes spoken of, though I was not attending to the par- 
ticulars at the time. It was not my meaning to ask a 
vol. i. 14 


210 


HARD TIMES. 


question that would give pain to any one here. If I 
should ask any other question that may happen to have 
that result, give me credit, if you please, for being in 
ignorance how to speak to you as I ought.” 

As Stephen had but a little while ago instinctively 
addressed himself to her, so she now instinctively ad- 
dressed herself to Rachael. Her manner was short and 
abrupt, yet faltering and timid. 

“ He has told you what has passed between himself 
and my husband ? You would be his first resource, I 
think.” 

“ I have heard the end of it, young lady,” said Ra- 
chael. 

“ Did I understand, that, being rejected by one em- 
ployer, he would probably be rejected by all ? I thought 
he said as much ? ” 

“ The chances are very small, young lady — next to 
nothing — for a man who gets a bad name among them.” 

“ What shall I understand that you mean by a bad 
name ? ” 

“ The name of being troublesome.” 

“ Then, by the prejudices of his own class, and by the 
prejudices of the other, he is sacrificed alike ? Are the 
two so deeply separated in this town, that there is no 
place whatever, for an honest workman between them ? ” 

Rachael shook her head in silence. 

“ He fell into suspicion,” said Louisa, “ with his fel- 
low-weavers, because he had made a promise not to be 
one of them. I think it must have been to you that 
he made that promise. Might I ask you why he made 
it ? ” 

Rachael burst into tears. “ I didn’t seek it of him, 
poor lad. I prayed him to avoid trouble for his own 


HARD TIMES. 


211 


good, little thinking he’d come to it through me. But I 
know he’d die a hundred deaths, ere he’d break his 
word. I know that of him well.” 

Stephen had remained quietly attentive, in his usual 
thoughtful attitude, with his hand at his chin. He now 
spoke in a voice rather less steady than usual. 

“ No one, excepting myseln, can ever know what 
honor, an’ what love, an’ respect, I bear to Rachael, or 
wi’ what cause. When I passed that promess, I towd 
her true, she were th’ Angel o’ my life. ’Twere a 
solemn promess. ’Tis gone fro’ me, for ever.” 

Louisa turned her head to him, and bent it with a 
deference that was new in her. She looked from him 
to Rachael, and her features softened. “ What will you 
do ? ” she asked him. And her voice had softened too. 

“ Weel, ma’am,” said Stephen, making the best of it, 
with a smile ; “ when I ha’ finished off, I mun quit this 
part, an’ try another. Fortnet or misfortnet, a man can 
but try ; there’s nowt to be done wi’out tryin’ — ’cept 
laying down an’ dying.” 

“ How will you travel ? ” 

“ Afoot, my kind ledy, afoot.” 

Louisa colored, and a purse appeared in her hand. The 
rustling of a bank-note was audible, as she unfolded one 
and laid it on the table. 

66 Rachael, will you tell him — for you know how, 
without offence — that this is freely his, to help him on 
his way ? Will you entreat him to take it ? ” 

“ I canna do that, young lady,” she answered, turning 
her head aside. “ Bless you for thinking o’ the poor lad 
wi’ such tenderness. But ’tis for him to know his heart, 
and what is right according to it.” 

Louisa looked, in part incredulous, in part frightened, 


212 


HARD TIMES. 


in part overcome with quick sympathy, when this man 
of so much self-command, who had been so plain and 
steady through the late interview, lost his composure in 
a moment, and now stood with his hand before his face. 
She stretched out hers, as if she would have touched 
him ; then checked herself, and remained still. 

“ Not e’en Rachael,” said Stephen, when he stood 
again with his face uncovered, “ could mak’ sitch a kind 
offerin’, by onny words, kinder. T’ show that I’m not a 
man wi’out reason and gratitude, I’ll tak’ two pound. I’ll 
borrow’ t for t’ pay’t back. ’Twill be the sweetest work 
as ever I ha’ done, that puts it in my power t’ acknowl- 
edge once more my lastin’ thankfulness for this present 
action.” 

She was fain to take up the note again, and to substi- 
tute the much smaller sum he had named. He was 
neither courtly, nor handsome, nor picturesque, in any 
respect ; and yet his manner of accepting it, and of ex- 
pressing his thanks without more words, had a grace in 
it that Lord Chesterfield could not have taught his sor 
in a century. 

Tom had sat upon the bed, swinging one leg and suck- 
ing his walking-stick with sufficient unconcern, until the 
visit had attained this stage. Seeing his sister ready to 
depart, he got up, rather hurriedly, and put in a word. 

u Just wait a moment, Loo ! Before we go, I should 
ike to speak to him a moment. Something comes into 
ny head. If you’ll step out on the stairs, Blackpool, I’ll 
mention it. Never mind a light, man ! ” Tom was re- 
markably impatient of his moving towards the cupboard, 
to get one. “ It don’t want a light.” 

Stephen followed him out, and Tom closed the room- 
door, and held the lock in his hand. 


HARD TIMES. 


213 


“ I say ! ” lie whispered. “ I think I can do you a 
good turn. Don’t ask me what it is, because it may not 

come to anything. But there’s no harm in my try- 

• 

mg. 

His breath fell like a flame of fire on Stephen’s ear, i* 
was so hot. 

“ That was our light porter at the Bank,” said Torn 
“ who brought you the message to-night. I call him our • 
light porter, because I belong to the Bank, too.” 

Stephen thought, “ What a hurry he is in ! ” He 
spoke so confusedly. 

“Well! ’’said Tom. “Now look here! When are 
you off ? ” 

“ T’ day’s Monday,” replied Stephen, considering. 

“ Why, sir, Friday or Saturday, nigh ’bout.” 

“Friday or Saturday,” said Tom. “Now, look here! 

I am not sure that I can do you the good turn I want to 
do you — that’s my sister, you know, in your room — 
but I may be able to, and if I should not be able to, 
there’s no harm done. So I tell you what. You’ll know 
our light porter again ? ” 

“ Yes sure,” said Stephen. 

“ Very well,” returned Tom. “ When you leave work 
of a night, between this and your going away, just hang 
about the Bank an hour or so, will you ? Don’t take on, 
as if you meant anything, if he should see you hanging 
about there ; because I sha’n’t put him up to speak to 
you, unless I find I can do you the service I want to d< 
you. In that case he’ll have a note or a message for 
you, but not else. Now look here ! You are sure you 
understand.” 

He had wormed a finger, in the darkness, through a 
buttonhole of Stephen’s coat, and was screwing that 


214 


HARD TIMES. 


corner of the garment tight up, round and round, in an 
extraordinary manner. 

“ I understand, sir,” said Stephen. 

“ Now look here ! ” repeated Tom. “ Be sure you 
don’t make any mistake then, and don t forget. I shall 
tell my sister as we go home, what I have in view, and 
she’ll approve, I know. Now look here ! You’re all 
right, are you? You understand all about it? Very 
well then. Come along, Loo ! ” 

He pushed the door open as he called to her, but did 
not return into the room, or wait to be lighted down the 
narrow stairs. He was at the bottom when she began 
to descend, and was in the street before she could take 
his arm. 

Mrs. Pegler remained in her corner until the brother 
and sister were gone, and until Stephen came back with 
the candle in his hand. She was in a state of inexpres- 
sible admiration of Mrs. Bounderby, and, like an unac- 
countable old woman, wept, “ because she was such a 
pretty dear.” Yet Mrs. Pegler was so flurried lest the 
object of her admiration should return by chance, or any- 
body else should come, that her cheerfulness was ended 
for that night. It was late too, to people who rose early 
and worked hard ; therefore the party broke up ; and 
Stephen and Rachael escorted their mysterious acquaint- 
ance to the door of the Travellers’ Coffee House, where 
hey parted from her. 

They walked back together to the corner of the street 
where Rachael lived, and as they drew nearer and nearer 
to it, silence crept upon them. When they c&me to the 
dark corner where their unfrequent meetings always 
ended, they stopped, still silent, as if both were afraid 
to speak. 


HARD TIMES. 


215 


“ I shall strive t’ see thee agen, Rachael, afore I go, 
but if not ” — 

“ Thou wilt not, Stephen, I know. ’Tis better that we 
make up our minds to be open w r i’ one another.” 

“ Thou ’rt awlus right. ’Tis bolder and better. I ha 
been thinkin then, Rachael, that as ’tis but a day or two 
that remains, ’twere better for thee, my dear, not t’ be 
seen wi’ me. T might bring thee into trouble, fur no 
good.” 

“’Tis not for that, Stephen, that I mind. But thou 
know’st our old agreement. ’Tis for that.” 

“Well, well,” said he. “ ’Tis better, onnyways.” 

“ Thou’lt write to me, and tell me all that happens, 
Stephen ? ” 

“ Yes. What can I say now, but Heaven be wi’ thee, 
Heaven bless thee, Heaven thank thee and reward 
thee ! ” 

“ May it bless thee, Stephen, too, in all thy wander- 
ings, and send thee peace and rest as last ! ” 

“ I towd thee, my dear,” said Stephen Blackpool — 
“ that night — that I would never see or think o’ onny- 
thing that angered me, but thou, so much better than me, 
should’st be beside it. Thou’rt beside it now. Thou 
mak’st me see it wi’ a better eye. Bless thee. Good- 
night. Good-by ! ” 

It was but a hurried parting in a common street, yet 
it was a sacred remembrance to these two common peo- 
ple. Utilitarian economists, skeletons of schoolmasters 
Commissioners of Fact, genteel and used-up infidels, 
gabblers of many little dog’s-eared creeds, the poor you 
will have always with you. Cultivate in them, while 
there is yet time, the utmost graces of the fancies and 
affections, to adorn their lives so much in need of 


216 


HARD TIMES. 


ornament ; or, in the day of your triumph, when romance 
is utterly driven out of their souls, and they and a bare 
existence stand face to face, Reality will take a wolfish 
turn, and make an end of you. 

Stephen worked the next day, and the next, uncheered 
y a word from any one, and shunned in all his comings 
nd goings as bef)re. At the end of the second day, he 
saw land ; at the end of the third, his loom stood empty. 

He had overstayed his hour in the street outside the 
Bank, on each of the two first evenings ; and nothing 
had happened there, good or bad. That he might not be 
remiss in his part of the engagement, he resolved to wait 
full two hours, on this third and last night. 

There was the lady who had once kept Mr. Boun- 
derby’s house, sitting at the first-floor window as he had 
seen her before ; and there was the light porter, some- 
times talking with her there, and sometimes looking over 
the blind below which had Bank upon it, and sometimes 
coming to the door and standing on the steps for a breath 
of air. When he first came out, Stephen thought he 
might he looking for him, and passed near ; but the light 
porter only cast his winking eyes upon him slightly, and 
said nothing. 

Two hours were a long stretch of lounging about, after 
a long day’s labor. Stephen sat upon the step of a door, 
leaned against a wall under an archway, strolled up and 
down, listened for the church clock, stopped and watched 
children playing in the street. Some purpose or other 
is so natural to every one, that a mere loiterer always 
looks and feels remarkable. When the first hour was 
out, Stephen even began to have an uncomfortable sensa- 
tion upon him of being for the time a disreputable char- 
acter. 


i 


HARD TIMES. 


217 


Then came the lamplighter, and two lengthening lines 
of light all down the long perspective of the street, un- 
til they were blended and lost in the distance. Mrs. 
Sparsit closed the first-floor window, drew down the 
blind, and went up-stairs. Presently, a light went up 
stairs after her, passing first the fanlight of the door, and 
afterwards the two staircase windows, on its way up. By 
and by, one corner of the second-floor blind was disturb- 
ed, as if Mrs. Sparsit’s eye were there ; also the other 
corner, as if the light porter’s eye were on that side. 
Still, no communication was made to Stephen. Much 
relieved when the tw r o hours were at last accomplished, 
he went away at a quick pace, as a recompense for so 
much loitering. 

He had only to take leave of his landlady, and lie 
down on his temporary bed upon the floor ; for his bundle 
was made up for to-morrow, and all was arranged for his 
departure. He meant to be clear of the town very early ; 
before the Hands were in the streets. 

It was barely daybreak, when, with a parting look 
round his room, mournfully wondering whether he should 
ever see it again, he went out. The town was as entirely 
deserted as if the inhabitants had abandoned it, rather 
than hold communication with him. Everything looked 
wan at that hour. Even the coming sun made but a pale 
waste in the sky, like a sad sea. 

By the place where Bachael lived, though it was not 
n his way ; by the red brick streets ; by the great silent 
factories, not trembling yet; by the railway, where the 
danger-lights were waning in the strengthening day ; by 
the railway’s crazy neighborhood, half pulled down and 
half built up ; by scattered red brick villas, where the 
besmoked evergreens were sprinkled with a dirty powder, 


218 


HARD TIMES. 


like untidy snuff-takers ; by coal-dust paths and many 
varieties of ugliness ; Stephen got to the top of the hill, 
and looked back. 

Day was shining radiantly upon the town then, and 
the bells were going for the morning work. Domestic 
fires were not yet lighted, and the high chimneys had the 
sky to themselves. Puffing out their poisonous volumes, 
they would not be long in hiding it ; but, for half an hour, 
some of the many windows were golden, which showed 
the Coketown people a sun eternally in eclipse, through 
a medium of smoked glass. 

So strange to turn from the chimneys to the birds. So 
strange to have the road-dust on his feet instead of the 
coal-grit. So strange to have lived to his time of life, 
and yet to be beginning like a boy this summer morning ! 
With these musings in his mind, and his bundle under 
his arm, Stephen took his attentive face along the high 
road. And the trees arched over him, whispering that 
he left a true and loving heart behind. 




HARD TIMES. 


219 


CHAPTER VII. 

GUNPOWDER. 

Mr. James Harthousf, “ going in ” for his adopted 
party, soon began to score. With the aid of a little 
more coaching for the political sages, a little more gen- 
teel listlessness for the general society, and a tolerable 
management of the assumed honesty in dishonesty, most 
effective and most patronized of the polite deadly sins, he 
speedily came to be considered of much promise. The 
not being troubled with earnestness was a grand point in 
his favor, enabling him to take to the hard Fact fellows 
with as good a grace as if he had been born one of the 
tribe, and to throw all other tribes • overboard, as con- 
scious hypocrites. 

“ Whom none of us believe, my dear Mrs. Boun derby, 
and who do not believe themselves. The only difference 
between us and the professors of virtue or benevolence, 
or philanthropy — never mind the name — is, that we 
know it is all meaningless, and say so ; while they know 
it equally and will never say so.” 

Why should she be shocked or warned by this reitera- 
tion ? It was not so unlike her father’s principles, and 
her early training, that it need startle her. Where was 
the great difference between the two schools, when each 
chained her down to material realities, and inspired her 
with no faith in anything else ? What was there in her 


220 


HARD TIMES. 


soul for James Harthouse to destroy, which Thomas 
Gradgrind had nurtured there in its state of innocence ! 

It was even the worse for her at this pass, that in her 
mind — implanted there before her eminently practical 
father began to form it — a struggling disposition to be 
lieve in a wider and nobler humanity than she had evei 
heard of, constantly strove with doubts and resentments. 
With doubts, because the aspiration had been so laid 
waste in her youth. With resentments, because of the 
wrong that had been done her, if it were indeed a whis- 
per of the truth. Upon a nature long accustomed to self- 
suppression, thus torn and divided, the Harthouse phi- 
losophy came as a relief and justification. Everything 
being hollow and worthless, she had missed nothing and 
sacrificed nothing. What did it matter, she had said to 
her father, when he proposed her husband. What did it 
matter, she said still. With a scornful self-reliance, she 
asked herself, What did anything matter — and went on. 

Towards what ? Step by step, onward and downward, 
towards some end, yet so gradually, that she believed her- 
self to remain motionless. As to Mr. Harthouse, whither 
he tended, he neither considered nor cared. He had no 
particular design or plan before him : no energetic wick- 
edness ruffled his lassitude. He was as much amused 
and interested, at present, as it became so fine a gentle- 
man to be ; perhaps even more than it would have been 
consistent with his reputation to confess. Soon after hi 
arrival, he languidly wrote to his brother, the honorabl 
and jocular member, that the Bounderbys were “ great 
fun ” ; and further, that the female Bounderby, instead 
of being the Gorgon he had expected, was young, and 
remarkably pretty. After that, he wrote no more about 
them, and devoted his leisure chiefly to their house. He 


HARD TIMES. 


221 


was very often in their house, in his Sittings and visit- 
ings about the Coketown district ; and was much encour- 
aged by Mr. Bounderby. It was quite in Mr. Boun- 
derby’s gusty way to boast to all his world that lie didn’t 
care about your highly connected people, but that if his 
wife Tom Gradgrind’s daughter did, she was welcome to 
their company. 

Mr. James Harthouse began to think it would be a new 
sensation, if the face which changed so beautifully for the 
whelp, would change for him. 

He was quick enough to observe ; he had a good 
memory, and did not forget a word of the brother’s reve- 
lations. He interwove them with everything he saw of 
the sister, and he began to understand her. To be sure, 
the better and profounder part of her character was not 
within his scope of perception ; for in natures, as in seas, 
depth answers unto depth ; but he soon began to read 
the rest with a student’s eye. 

Mr. Bounderby had taken possession of a house and 
grounds, about fifteen miles from the town, and accessible 
within a mile or two, by a railway striding on many 
arches over a wild country, undermined by deserted coal- 
shafts, and spotted at night by fires and black shapes of 
stationary engines at pits’ mouths. This country, grad- 
ually softening towards the neighborhood of Mr. Boun- 
derby ’s retreat, there mellowed into a rustic landscape, 
golden with heath, and snowy with hawthorn in the 
spring of the year, and tremulous with leaves and their 
shadows all the summertime. The Bank had foreclosed 
a mortgage effected on the property thus pleasantly situ- 
ated, by one of the Coketown magnates, who, in his de- 
termination to make a shorter cut than usual to an enor- 
mous fortune, overspeculated himself by about two hun- 


222 


HARD TIMES. 


\ 

dred thousand pounds. These accidents did sometimes 
happen in the best-regulated families of Coketown, but 
the bankrupts had no connection whatever with the im- 
provident classes. 

It afforded Mr. Bounderby supreme satisfaction t< 
install himself in this snug little estate, and with demon 
strati ve humility to grow cabbages in the flower-garden. 
He delighted to live, barrack-fashion, among the elegant 
furniture, and he bullied the very pictures with his origin. 
“ Why, sir,” he would say to a visitor, “ I am told that 
Nickits,” the late owner, “ gave seven hundred pound for 
that Sea-beach. Now, to be plain with you, if I ever, in 
the whole course of my life, take seven looks at it, at a 
hundred pound a look, it will be as much as I shall do. 
No, by George ! I don’t forget that I am Josiah Boun- 
derby of Coketown. For years upon years, the only 
pictures in my possession, or that I could have got into 
my possession by any means, unless I stole ’em, were the 
engravings of a man shaving himself in a boot, on the 
blacking bottles that I was overjoyed to use in cleaning 
boots with, and that I sold when they were empty for a 
farthing a-piece, and glad to get it ! ” 

Then he would address Mr. Hartliouse in the same 
style. 

“ Hartliouse, you have a couple of horses down here. 
Bring half a dozen more if you like, and we’ll find room 
for ’em. There’s stabling in this place for a dozen horses ; 
and unless Nickits is belied, he kept the full number. A 
round dozen of ’em, sir. When that man was a boy, he 
went to Westminster School. Went to Westminster 
School as a King’s Scholar, when I was principally liv- 
ing on garbage, and sleeping in market-baskets. Why, 
if I wanted to keep a dozen horses — which I don’t, for 


HARD TIMES. 


223 


one’s enough for me — I couldn’t bear to see ’em in their 
stalls here, and think what my own lodging used to be. 
I couldn’t look at ’em, sir, and not order ’em out. Yet 
so things come round. You see this place ; you know 
what sort of a place it is ; you are aware that there’s 
not a completer place of its size in this kingdom or else- 
where — I don’t care where — and here, got into the 
middle of it, like a maggot into a nut, is Josiah Boun- 
derby. While Nickits (as a man came into my office, 
and told me yesterday), Nickits, who used to act in 
Latin, in the Westminster School plays, with the chief- 
justices and nobility of this country applauding him till 
they were black in the face, is drivelling at this minute 
— drivelling, sir ! — in a fifth floor, up a narrow dark 
back street in Antwerp.” 

It was among the leafy shadows of this retirement, in 
the long sultry summer days, that Mr. Harthouse began 
to prove the face which had set him wondering when he 
first saw it, and to try if it would change for him. 

“ Mrs. Bounderby, I esteem it a most fortunate acci- 
dent that I find you alone here. I have for some time 
had a particular wish to speak to you.” 

It was not by any wonderful accident that he found 
her, the time of day being that at which she was always 
alone, and the place being her favorite resort. It was 
an opening in a dark wood, where some felled trees lay, 
and where she would sit watching the fallen leaves of 
last year, as she had watched the falling ashes at home. 
He sat down beside her, with a glance at her face. 

“ Your brother. My young friend Tom ” — 

Her color brightened, and she turned to him with a 
look of interest. “I never in my life,” he thought, 
“ saw anything so remarkable and so captivating as the 


m 


HARD TIMES. 


lighting of those features ! ” His face betrayed his 
thoughts — perhaps without betraying him, for it might 
have been according to its instructions so to do. 

“ Pardon me. The expression of your sisterly inter- 
est is so beautiful — Tom should be so proud of it — 1 
know this is inexcusable, but I am so compelled to ad- 
mire.” 

“ Being so impulsive,” she said composedly. 

“ Mrs. Bounderby, no : you know I make no pretence 
with you. You know I am a sordid piece of human na- 
ture, ready to sell myself at any time for any reasonable 
sum, and altogether incapable of any Arcadian proceed- 
ing whatever.” 

“ I am waiting,” she returned, “ for your further refer- 
ence to my brother.” 

“ You are rigid with me, and I deserve it. I am as 
worthless a dog as you will find, except that I am not 
false — not false. But you surprised and started me 
from my subject, which was your brother. I have an 
interest in him.” 

u Have you an interest in anything, Mr. Harthouse ? ” 
she asked, half incredulously and half gratefully. 

u If you had asked me when I first came here, I 
should have said no. I must say now — even at the 
hazard of appearing to make a pretence, and of justly 
awakening your incredulity — yes.” 

She made a slight movement, as if she were trying to 
gpeak, but could not find voice ; at length she said, “ Mr. 
Harthouse, I give you credit for being interested in my 
brother.” 

u Thank you. I claim to deserve it. You know how 
little I do claim, but I will go that length. You have 
done so much for him, you are so fond of him ; your 


HARD TIMES. 


225 


whole life, Mrs. Bounderby, expresses such charming 
self-forgetfulness on his account — pardon me again — 
I am running wide of the subject. I am interested in 
him for his own sake.” 

She had made the slightest action possible, as if she 
would have risen in a hurry and gone away. He had 
turned the course of what he said at that instant, and 
she remained. 

u Mrs. Bounderby,” he resumed, in a lighter manner, 
and yet with a show of effort in assuming it, which was 
even more expressive than the manner he dismissed ; 
“ it is no irrevocable offence in a young fellow of your 
brother’s years, if he is heedless, inconsiderate, and ex- 
pensive — a little dissipated, in the common phrase. Is 
he ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Allow me to be frank. Do you think he games at 
all ? ” 

“ I think he makes bets.” Mr. Harthouse waiting, as 
if that were not her whole answer, she added, “ I know 
he does.” 

“ Of course he loses ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Everybody does lose who bets. May I hint at the 
probability of your sometimes supplying him with money 
for these purposes ? ” 

She sat, looking down ; but, at this question, raised 
her eyes searchingly and a little resentfully. 

u Acquit me of impertinent curiosity, my dear Mrs. 
Bounderby. I think Tom may be gradually falling into 
trouble, and I wish to stretch out a helping hand to him 
Tom the depths of my wicked experience. — Shall I say 
again, for his sake ? Is that necessary ? ” 

VOL. I. 15 


226 


HARD TIMES. 


She seemed to try to answer, but nothing came of it. 

“ Candidly to confess everything that has occurred to 
me,” said James Harthouse, again gliding with the same 
appearance of effort into his more airy manner ; “ I will 
confide to you my doubt whether he has had many ad- 
vantages. Whether — forgive my plainness — whether 
any great amount of confidence is likely to have been 
established between himself and his most worthy father.” 

“ I do not,” said Louisa, flushing with her own great 
remembrance in that wise, “ think it likely.” 

“ Or, between himself, and — I may trust to your per- 
fect understanding of mv meaning, I am sure — and his 

O J O' 

highly esteemed brother-in-law.” 

She flushed deeper and deeper, and was burning red 
when she replied in a fainter voice, “ I do not think that 
likely, either.” 

“ Mrs. Bounderby,” said Harthouse, after a short si- 
lence, “ may there be a better confidence between your- 
self and me ? Tom has borrowed a considerable sum of 
you ? ” 

“ You will understand, Mr. Harthouse,” she returned, 
after some indecision : she had been more or less uncer- 
tain, and troubled throughout the conversation, and yet 
had in the main preserved her self-contained manner : 

“ you will understand that if I tell you what you press ^ 
to know, it is not by way of complaint or regret. I 
would never complain of anything, and what I have 
done I do not in the least regret.” 

“ So spirited, too ! ” thought James Harthouse. 

“ When I married, I found that my brother was even 
at that time heavily in debt. Heavily for him, I mean. 
Heavily enough to oblige me to sell some trinkets. 
They were no sacrifice. I sold them very willingly. I 


HARD TIMES. 


227 


attached no value to them. They were quite worthless 
to me.” 

Either she saw in his face that he knew, or she only 
feared in her conscience that he knew, that she spoke 
of some of her husband’s gifts. She stopped, and red- 
dened again. If he had not known it before, he would 
have known it then, though he had been a much duller 
man than he was. 

“ Since then, I have given my brother, at various 
times, what money I could spare : in short, what money 
I have had. Confiding in you at all, on the faith of the 
interest you profess for him, I will not do so by halves. 
Since you have been in the habit of visiting here, he 
has wanted in one sum as much as a hundred pounds. 
I have not been able to give it to him. I have felt un- 
easy for the consequences of his being so involved, but 
I have kept these secrets until now, when I trust them 
to your honor. I have held no confidence with any one, 
because — you anticipated my reason just now.” She 
abruptly broke off. 

He was a ready man, and he saw, and seized, an op- 
portunity here of presenting her own image to her, 
slightly disguised as her brother. 

“Mrs. Bounderby, though a graceless person, of the 
world worldly, I feel the utmost interest, I assure you, 
in what you tell me. I cannot possibly be hard upon 
your brother. I understand and share the wise consid- 
eration with which you regard his errors. With all 
possible respect both for Mr. Gradgrind and for Mr. 
Bounberby, I think I perceive that he has not been 
fortunate in his training. Bred at a disadvantage tow- 
ards the society in which he has his part to play, he 
rushes into these extremes for himself, from opposite 


228 


HARD TIMES. 


extremes that have long been forced — with the very 
best intentions we have no doubt — upon him. Mr. 
Bounderby’s fine bluff English independence, though a 
most charming characteristic, does not — as we have 
agreed — invite confidence. If I might venture to re- 

O o 

mark that it is the least in the world deficient in that 
delicacy to which a youth mistaken, a character miscon- 
ceived, and abilities misdirected, would turn for relief 
and guidance, I should express what it presents to my 
own view.” 

As she sat looking straight before her, across the 
changing lights upon the grass into the darkness of the 
wood beyond, he saw in her face her application of his 
very distinctly uttered words. 

“All allowance,” he continued, “must be made. 1 
have one great fault to find with Tom, however, which 
I cannot forgive, and for which I take him heavily to 
account.” 

Louisa turned her eyes to his face, and asked him 
what fault was that ? 

“ Perhaps,” he returned, “ I have said enough. Per- 
haps it would have been better, on the whole, if no allu- 
sion to it had escaped me.” 

“ You alarm me, Mr. Ilarthouse. Pray let me 
know it.” 

“ To relieve you from needless apprehension — and as 
this confidence regarding your brother, which I prize I 
am sure above all possible things, has been established 
between us — I obey. I cannot forgive him for not 
being more sensible in every word, look, and act of his 
life, of the affection of his best friend ; of the devotion 
of his best friend ; of her unselfishness ; of her sacrifice. 
The rel mi he makes her, within my observation, is a 


HARD TIMES. 


229 


very poor one. Wlmt she has done for him demands his 
constant love and gratitude, not his ill-humor and caprice. 
Careless fellow as I am, I am not so indifferent, Mrs. 
Bounderby, as to be regardless of this vice in your 
brother, or inclined to consider it a venial offence.” 

The wood floated before her, for her eyes were suf- 
fused with tears. They rose from a deep well, long 
concealed, and her heart was filled with acute pain that 
found no relief in them. 

“ In a word, it is to correct your brother in this, Mrs. 
Bounderby, that I must aspire. My better knowledge 
of his circumstances, and my direction and advice in 
extricating him — rather valuable, I hope, as coming 
from a scapegrace on a much larger scale — will give 
me some influence over him, and all I gain I shall cer- 
tainly use towards this end. I have said enough, and 
more than enough. I seem to be protesting that I am a 
sort of good fellow, when, upon my honor, I have not the 
least intention to make any protestation to that effect, 
and openly announce that I am nothing of the sort. 
Yonder, among the trees,” he added, having lifted up his 
eyes and looked about ; for he had watched her closely 
until now; “is your brother himself; no doubt, just 
come down. • As he seems to be loitering in this direc- 
tion, it may be as well, perhaps, to walk towards him, 
and throw ourselves in his way. He has been very 
silent and doleful of late. Perhaps, his brotherly con- 
science is touched — if there are such things as con- 
sciences. Though, upon my honor, I hear of them much 
oo often to believe in them.” 

He assisted her to rise, and she took his arm, and they 
advanced to meet the whelp. He was idly beating the 
branches as he lounged along : or he stooped viciously 


230 


HARD TIMES. 


to rip the moss from the trees with his stick. He was 
startled when they came upon him while he was engaged 
in this latter pastime, and his color changed. 

“ Holloa ! ” he stammered ; “ I didn’t know yon were 
here.” 

“Whose name, Tom,” said Mr. Harthouse, putting 
his hand upon his shoulder and turning him, so that they 
all three walked towards the house together, “ have you 
been carving on the trees ? ” 

“ Whose name ? ” returned Tom. “ Oh ! You mean 
what girl’s name ? ” 

“ You have a suspicious appearance of inscribing some 
fair creature’s on the bark, Tom.” 

“ Not much of that, Mr. Harthouse, unless some fair 
creature with a slashing fortune at her own disposal 
would take a fancy to me. Or she might be as ugly as 
she was rich, without any fear of losing me. I’d carve 
her name as often as she liked.” 

“ I am afraid you are mercenary, Tom.” 

“ Mercenary,” repeated Tom. “ Who is not merce- 
nary ? Ask my sister.” 

“ Have you so proved it to be a failing of mine, 
Tom ? ” said Louisa, showing no other sense of his dis- 
content and ill-nature. 

“ You know whether the cap fits you, Loo,” returned 
her brother, sulkily. “ If it does, you can wear it.” 

“ Tom is misanthropical to-day, as all bored people are 
now and then,” said Mr. Harthouse. “ Don’t believe 
him, Mrs. Bounderby. He knows much better. I shall 
disclose some of his opinions of you, privately expressed 
to me, unless he relents a little.” 

“ At all events, Mr. Harthouse,” said Tom, softening 
m his admiration of his patron, but shaking his head 




















































































































f 








































HARD TIMES. 


231 


sullenly too, “you can’t tell her that I ever praised her 
for being mercenary. I may have praised her for being 
the contrary, and I should do it again if I had as good 
reason. However, never mind this now ; it’s not very 
interesting to you, and I am sick of the subject.” 

They walked on to the house, where Louisa quitted 
her visitor’s arm and went in. He stood looking after 
her, as she ascended the steps, and passed into the 
shadow of the door ; then put his hand upon her broth- 
er’s shoulder again, and invited him with a confidential 
nod to a walk in the garden. 

“ Tom, my fine fellow, I want to have a word with 
you.” 

They had stopped among a disorder of roses — it was 
part of Mr. Bounderby’s humility to keep Nickits’s roses 
on a reduced scale — and Tom sat down on a terrace- 
parapet, plucking buds and picking them to pieces ; while 
his powerful Familiar stood over him, with a foot upon 
the parapet, and his figure easily resting on the arm sup- 
ported by that knee. They were just visible from her 
window. Perhaps she saw them. 

“ Tom, what’s the matter ? ” 

“ Oh ! Mr. Harthouse,” said Tom, with a groan, “ I 
am hard up, and bothered out of my life.” 

“ My good fellow, so am I.” 

“ You ! ” returned Tom. “ You are the picture of 
^dependence. Mr. Harthouse, I am in a horrible mess. 
You have no idea what a state I have got myself into — 
what a state my sister might have got me out of. if she 
would only have done it.” 

He took to biting the rose-buds now, and tearing 
them away from his teeth with a hand that trembled 
like an infirm old man’s. After one exceedingly observ- 


232 


HARD TIMES. 


ant look at liim, his companion relapsed into his light- 
est air. 

“ Tom, you are inconsiderate : you expect too much of 
your sister. You have had money of her, you dog, you 
know you have.” 

“Well, Mr. Harthouse, I know I have. How else 
was I to get it ? Here's old Bounderby always boasting 
that at my age he lived upon two-pence a month, or 
something of that sort. Here’s my father drawing what 
he calls a line, and tying me down to it from a baby, 
neck and heels. Here’s my mother who never has any- 
thing of her own, except her complaints. What is a 
fellow to do for money, and where am I to look for it, 
if not to my sister ? ” 

He was almost crying, and scattered the buds about by 
dozens. Mr. Harthouse took him persuasively by the coat. 

“ But, my dear Tom, if your sister has not got it ” — 

“ Not got it, Mr. Harthouse? I don’t say she has got 
it. I may have wanted more than she was likely to 
have got. But then she ought to get it. She could get 
it. It’s of no use pretending to make a secret of matters 
now, after what I have told you already ; you know she 
didn’t marry old Bounderby for her own sake, or for his 
sake, but for my sake. Then why doesn’t she get what 
I want, out of him, for my sake ? She is not obliged to 
say what she is going to do with it ; she is sharp enough ; 
she could manage to coax it out of him, if she chose. 
Then why doesn’t she choose, when I tell her of what 
consequence it is ? But no. There she sits in his com- 
pany like a stone, instead of making herself agreeable 
and getting it easily. I don’t know what you may call 
this, but / call it unnatural conduct.” 

There was a piece of ornamental water immediately 


HARD TIMES. 


233 


below the parapet, on the other side, into which Mr 
James Harthouse had a very strong inclination to pitch 
Mr. Thomas Gradgrind Junior, as the injured men of 
Coketown threatened to pitch their property into the 
Atlantic. But he preserved his easy attitude ; and noth- 
ing more solid went over the stone balustrades than the 
accumulated rosebuds now floating about, a little sur- 
face-island. 

“ My dear Tom,” said Harthouse, “ let me try to be 
your banker.” 

“For God’s sake,” replied Tom, suddenly, “don’t 
talk about bankers ! ” And very white he looked, in 
contrast with the roses. Very white. 

Mr. Harthouse, as a thoroughly well-bred man, accus- 
tomed to the best society, was not to be surprised — he 
could as soon have been affected — but he raised his eye- 
lids a little more, as if they were lifted by a feeble touch 
of wonder. Albeit it was as much against the precepts 
of his school to wonder, as it was against the doctrines 
of the Gradgrind College. 

“ What is the present need, Tom ? Three figures ? 
Out with them. Say what they are.” 

“ Mr. Harthouse,” returned Tom, now actually crying ; 
and his tears were better than his injuries, however piti- 
ful a figure he made ; “ it’s too late ; the money is of no 
use to me at present. I should have had it before to be 
of use to me. But I am very much obliged to you ; 
you’re a true friend.” 

A true friend ! “ Whelp, whelp ! ” thought Mr. Hart- 
house, lazily ; “ what an Ass you are ! ” 

“ And I take your offer as a great kindness,” said Tom, 
grasping his hand. “As a great kindness, Mr. Hart- 
house.” 


234 


HARD TIMES. 


“ Well,” returned the other, u it may be of more use 
by and by. And, my good fellow, if you will open your 
bedevilments to me when they come thick upon you, I 
may show you better ways out of them than you can find 
for yourself.” 

“ Thank you,” said Tom, shaking his head dismally 
and chewing rosebuds. “ I wish I had known you sooner, 
Mr. Harthouse.” 

“ Now, you see, Tom,” said Mr. Harthouse in conclu- 
sion, himself tossing over a rose or two, as a contribution 
to the island, which was always drifting to the wall as 
if it wanted to become a part of the mainland : “ every 
man is selfish in everything he does, and I am exactly 
like the rest of my fellow-creatures. I am desperately 
intent ; ” the languor of his desperation being quite trop- 
ical ; “ on your softening towards your sister — which 
you ought to do ; and on your being a more loving and 
agreeable sort of brother — which you ought to be.” 

“ I will be, Mr. Harthouse.” 

“No time like the present, Tom. Begin at once.” 

“ Certainly I wall. And my sister Loo shall say so.” 

“ Having made which bargain, Tom,” said Harthouse, 
clapping him on the shoulder again, with an air which 
left him at liberty to infer — as he did, poor fool — that 
this condition was imposed upon him in mere careless 
good nature to lessen his sense of obligation, “ we will 
tear ourselves asunder until dinner-time.” 

When Tom appeared before dinner, though his min 
seemed heavy enough, his body was on the alert ; and 
he appeared before Mr. Bounderby came in. “ I didn’t 
mean to be cross, Loo,” he said, giving her his hand, and 
kissing her. “ 1 know you are fond of me, and you 
know I am fond of you.” 


HARD TIMES. 


235 


After this, there was a smile upon Louisa’s face that 
day, for some one else. Alas, for some one else ! 

“ So much the less is the whelp the only creature that 
she cares for,” thought James Harthouse, reversing the 
reflection of his first day’s knowledge of her pretty face. 
u So much the less, so much the less.” 


236 


HARD TIMES. 



f 

CHAPTER VIII. 

r 

EXPLOSION. 

V 

The next morning was too bright a morning for sleep, 
and James Harthouse rose early, and sat in the pleas- 
ant bay window of- his dressing-room, smoking the rare 
tobacco that had had so wholesome an influenee on his 
young friend. Reposing in the sunlight, with the fra- 
grance of his eastern pipe about him, and the dreamy 
smoke vanishing into the air, so rich and soft with sum- 
mer odors, he reckoned up his advantages as an idle 
winner might count his gains. He was not at all bored 
for the time, and could give his mind to it. 

He had established a confidence with her, from which 
her husband was excluded. He had established a confi- 
dence with her, that absolutely turned upon her indiffer- 
ence towards her husband, and the absence, now and at 
all times, of any congeniality between them. He had 
artfully, but plainly assured her, that he knew her heart 
in its last most delicate recesses ; he had come so near to 
her through its tenderest sentiment ; he had associated 
himself with that feeling ; and the barrier behind which 
she lived had melted away. All very odd, and very 
satisfactory ! 

And yet he had not, even now, any earnest wickedness 
of purpose in him. Publicly and privately, it were much 
better for the age in which he lived, that he and the 



HARD TIMES. 


237 


k 


legion of whom he was one were designedly bad, than 
indifferent and purposeless. It is the drifting icebergs 
setting with any current anywhere, that wreck the ships. 

When the Devil goeth about like a roaring lion, 
he goeth about in a shape by which few but savages 
and hunters are attracted. But, when he is trimmed, 
smoothed, and varnished, according to the mode : when 
he is aweary of vice, and aweary of virtue, used up as 
to brimstone, and used up as to bliss ; then, whether he 
take to the serving out of red tape, or to the kindling of 
red fire, he is the very Devil. 

So, James Harthouse reclined in the window, indo- 
lently smoking, and reckoning up the steps he had taken 
on the road by which he happened to be travelling. The 
end to which it led was before him, pretty plainly ; but 
he troubled himself with no calculations about it. What 
will be, will be. 

As he had rather a long ride to take that day — for 
there was a public occasion “ to do ” at some distance, 
which afforded a tolerable opportunity of going in for the 
Gradgrind men — he dressed early, and went down to 
breakfast. He was anxious to see if she had relapsed 
since the previous evening. No. He resumed where 
he had left off. There was a look of interest for him 
again. 

He got through the day as much (or as little) to 
his own satisfaction, as was to be expected under the 
fatiguing circumstances ; and came riding back at six 
o’clock. There was a sweep of some half mile between 
the lodge and the house, and he was riding along at a 
foot-pace over the smooth gravel, once Nickits’s, when 
Mr. Bounderby burst out of the shrubbery, with such 
violence as to make his horse shy across the road. 


t 


238 


HARD TIMES. 


“ Harthouse ! ” cried Mr. Bounderby. " Have you 
heard ? ” 

“ Heard what ? ” said Harthouse, soothing his horse, 
and inwardly favoring Mr. Bounderby with no good 
wishes. 

“ Then you haven't heard ! ” 

“ I have heard you, and so has this brute. I have 
heard nothing else.” 

Mr. Bounderby, red and hot, planted himself in the 
centre of the path before the horse’s head, to explode his 
bombshell with more effect. 

“ The Bank’s robbed ! ” 

“ You don’t mean it ! ” 

“ Robbed last night, sir. Robbed in an extraordinary 
manner. Robbed with a false key.” 

“ Of much ? ” 

Mr. Bounderby, in his desire to make the most of it, 
really seemed mortified by being obliged to reply, “ Why, 
no ; not of very much. But it might have been.” 

“ Of how much ? ” 

“ Oh ! as a sum — if you stick to a sum — of not more 
than a hundred and fifty pound,” said Bounderby, with 
impatience. “ But it’s not the sum ; it’s the fact. It’s 
the fact of the Bank being robbed, that’s the important 
circumstance. I am surprised you don’t see it.” 

“ My dear Bounderby,” said James, dismounting, and 
giving his bridle to his servant. “ I do see it ; and am 
as overcome as you can possibly desire me to be, by the 
spectacle afforded to my mental view. Nevertheless, 
I may be allowed, I hope, to congratulate you — which I 
do with all my soul, I assure you — on your not having 
sustained a greater loss.” 

“ Thank’ee,” replied Bounderby, in a short, ungracious 


HARD TIMES. 


239 


manner. “ But I tell you what. It might have been 
twenty thousand pound.” 

“ I suppose it might.” 

“ Suppose it might ! By the Lord, you may suppose 
so. By George ! ” said Mr. Bounderby, with sundry 
menacing nods and shakes of his head, “ it might have 
been twice twenty. There’s no knowing what it would 
have been, or wouldn’t have been, as it was, but for the 
fellows’ being disturbed.” 

Louisa had come up now, and Mrs. Sparsit, and Bitzer. 

“ Here’s Tom Gradgrind’s daughter knows pretty well 
what it might have been, if you don’t,” blustered Boun- 
derby. “ Dropped, sir, as if she was shot when ] 
told her ! Never knew her do such a thing be- 
fore. Does her credit, under the circumstances, in my 
opinion ! ” 

She still looked faint and pale. James Harthouse 
begged her to take his arm ; and as they moved on very 
slowly, asked her how the robbery had been committed. 

“ Why, I am going to tell you,” said Bounderby, irri- 
tably giving his arm to Mrs. Sparsit. “ If you hadn’t 
been so mighty particular about the/ sum, I should have 
begun to tell you before. You know this lady (for she 
is a lady), Mrs. Sparsit ? ” 

“ I have already had the honor ” — 

“ Very well. And this young man, Bitzer, you saw 
him too on the same occasion ? ” Mr. Harthouse inclined 
his head in assent, and Bitzer knuckled his forehead. 

“ Very well. They live at the Bank. You know 
they live at the Bank, perhaps ? Very well. Yester- 
day afternoon, at the close of business hours, everything 
was put away as usual. In the iron room that this young 
fellow sleeps outside of, there was never mind how much. 


240 


HARD TIMES. 


In the little safe in young Tom’s closet, the safe used 
for petty purposes, there was a hundred and fifty odd 
pound.” 

“ A hundred and fifty-four, seven, one,” said Bitzer. 

“ Come ! ” retorted Bounderby, stopping to wheel 
round upon him, “ let’s have none of your interruptions. 
It’s enough to be robbed, while you’re snoring because 
you’re too comfortable, without being put right with your 
four seven ones. I didn’t snore, myself, when I was 
your age, let me tell you. I hadn’t victuals enough to 
snore. And I didn’t four seven one. Not if I knew it.” 

Bitzer knuckled his forehead again, in a sneaking 
manner, and seemed at once particularly impressed and 
depressed by the instance last given of Mr. Bounderby’s 
moral abstinence. 

“ A hundred and fifty odd pound,” resumed Mr. Boun- 
derby. “ That sum of money young Tom locked in his 
safe ; not a very strong safe, but that’s no matter now. 
Everything was left, all right. Some time in the night, 
while this young fellow snored — Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am, 
you say you have heard him snore ? ” 

“ Sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, “ I cannot say that I 
have heard him precisely snore, and therefore must not 
make that statement. But on winter evenings, when 
he has fallen asleep at his table, I have heard him, what 
I should prefer to describe as partially choke. I have 
heard him on such occasions produce sounds of a nature 
similar to what may be sometimes heard in Dutch clocks. 
Not,” said Mrs. Sparsit, with a lofty sense of giving 
strict evidence, “ that I would convey any imputation on 
his moral character. Far from it. I have always con- 
sidered Bitzer a young man of the most upright prin- 
ciple ; and to that I beg to bear my testimony.” 


HARD TIMES. 241 

“ Well ! ” said the exasperated Bounderby, “ while he 
was snoring, or choking, or Dutch-clocking, or some- 
thing or other — being asleep — some fellows, somehow, 
whether previously concealed in the house or not re- 
mains tp be seen, got to young Tom’s safe, forced it, 
and abstracted the contents. Being then disturbed, they 
made off ; letting themselves out at the main door, and 
double-locking it again (it was double-locked, and the 
key under Mrs. Sparsit’s pillow) with a false key, which 
was picked up in the street near the Bank, about twelve 
o’clock to-day. No alarm takes place, till this chap, 
Bitzer turns out this morning, and begins to open and 
prepare the offices for business. Then, looking at Tom’s 
safe, he sees the door ajar, and finds the lock forced, and 
the money gone.” 

“ Where is Tom, by the by ? ” asked Harthouse, glan- 
cing round. 

“ He has been helping the police,” said Bounderby, 
u and stays behind at the Bank. I wish these fellows 
had tried to rob me when I was at his time of life. 
They would have been out of pocket if they had in- 
vested eighteenpence in the job ; I can tell 'em that.” 

“ Is anybody suspected ? ” 

“ Suspected ? I should think there was somebody 
suspected. Egod ! ” said Bounderby, relinquishing Mrs. 
Sparsit’s arm to wipe his heated head. “ Josiah Boun- 
derby of Coketown is not to be plundered and nobody 
suspected. No, thank you ! ” 

Might Mr. Harthouse inquire Who was suspected ’ 

“ Well,” said Bounderby, stopping and facing about 
to confront them all, “ I’ll tell you. It’s not to be men- 
tioned everywhere; it’s not to be mentioned anywhere : 
in order that the scoundrels concerned (there’s a gang 

16 


VOL. I. 


242 


HARD TIMES. 


of ’em) may be thrown off their guard. So take this in 
confidence. Now wait a bit.” Mr. Bounderby wiped 
his head again. “ What should you say to ; ” here he 
violently exploded “ to a Hand being in it ? ” 

“ I hope,” said Harthouse, lazily, “ not our friend 
Blackpot ? ” 

“ Say Pool instead of Pot, sir,” returned Bounderby, 
“ and that’s the man.” 

Louisa faintly uttered some word of incredulity and 
surprise. 

“ 0 yes ! I know ! ” said Bounderby, immediately 
catching at the sound. “ I know ! I am used to that. I 
know all about it. They are the finest people in the 
world, these fellows are. They have got the gift of the 
gab, they have. They only want to have their rights 
explained to them, they do. But I tell you what. Show 
me a dissatisfied Hand, and I’ll show you a man that’s 
fit for anything bad, I don’t care what it is.” 

Another of the popular fictions of Coketown, which 
some pains had been taken to disseminate — and which 
some people really believed. 

“ But I am acquainted with these chaps,” said Boun- 
derby. “ I can read ’em off like books. Mrs. Sparsit, 
ma’am, I appeal to you. What warning did I give that 
fellow, the first time he set foot in the house, when the 
express object of his visit was to know how he could 
knock Religion over, and floor the Established Church ? 
Mrs. Sparsit, in point of high connections, you are on a 
level with the aristocracy, — did I say, or did I not say, 
to that fellow, 4 you can’t hide the truth from me : you 
are not the kind of fellow I like ; you’ll come to no 
good ? ’ ” 

“Assuredly, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, “you did, 


HARD TIMES. 243 

\ 

in a highly impressive manner, give him such an admo- 
nition.” 

“ When he shocked you, ma’am,” said Bounderby ; 
“ when he shocked your feelings ? ” 

“ Yes, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a meek shake 
of her head, “ he certainly did so. Though I do not 
mean to say but that my feelings may be weaker on such 
points — more foolish if the term is preferred — than 
they might have been, if I had always occupied my pres- 
ent position.” 

Mr. Bounderby stared with a bursting pride at Mr. 
Harthouse, as much as to say, “ I am the proprietor of 
this female, and she’s worth your attention I think.” 
Then, resumed his discourse. 

“ You can recall for yourself, Harthouse, what I said 
to him when you saw him. I didn’t mince the matter 
with him. I am never mealy with ’em. I know ’em. 
Very well, sir. Three days after that, he bolted. Went 
off, nobody knows where : as my mother did in my in- 
fancy — only with this difference, that he is a worse 
subject than my mother, if possible. What did he do 
before he went ? What do you say ; ” Mr. Bounderby, 
with his hat in his hand, gave a beat upon the crown at 
every little division of his sentences, as if it were a 
tambourine ; “ to his being seen — night after night — 
watching the Bank ? — to his lurking about there — 
after dark ? — To its striking Mrs. Sparsit — that he 
could be lurking for no good — To her calling Bitzer’s 
attention to him, and their both taking notice of him — 
And to its appearing on inquiry to-day — that he was 
also noticed by the neighbors ? ” Having come to the 
climax, Mr. Bounderby, like an oriental dancer, put his 
tambourine on his head. 


244 


HARD TIMES. 


Suspicious,” said James Hartliouse, “ certainly.” 

“ I think so, sir,” said Bounderby, with a defiant nod, 

“ I think so. But there are more of ’em in it. There’s 
an old woman. One never hears of these things till the 
mischief’s done ; all sorts of defects are found out in 
the stable door after the horse is stolen ; there’s an old 
woman turns up now. An old woman who seems to 
have been flying into town on a broomstick, every now 
and then. She watches the place a whole day before 
this fellow begins, and on the night when you saw him, 
she steals away with him, and holds a council with him 
— I suppose to make her report on going off duty, and 
be damned to her.” 

There was such a person in the room that night, and , 
she shrunk from observation, thought Louisa. 

“ This is not all of ’em, even as we already know ’em,” 
said Bounderby, with many nods of hidden meaning. 

“ But I have said enough for the present. You'll have 
the goodness to keep it quiet, and mention it to no one. 
It may take time, but we shall have ’em. It’s policy to 
give ’em line enough, and there’s no objection to that.” 

“ Of course they will be punished with the utmost 
rigor of the law, as notice-boards observe,” replied James 
Hartliouse, “ and serve them right. Fellows who go in 
for Banks must take the consequences. If there were 
no consequences, we should all go in for Banks.” He 
had gently taken Louisa’s parasol from her hand, and 
had put it up for her ; and she walked under its shade, 
though the sun did not shine there. 

“ For the present, Loo Bounderby,” said her husband, 

“ here’s Mrs. Sparsit to look after. Mrs. Sparsit’s nerves 
have been acted upon by this business, and she’ll stay 
uere a day or two. So, make her comfortable.” 


\ 


HARD TIMES. 


245 


“Thank you very much, sir,” that discreet lady ob- 
served, “ but pray do not let My comfort be a considera- 
tion. Anything will do for Me.” 

It soon appeared that if Mrs. Sparsit had a failing in 
her association with that domestic establishment, it wa 
that she was so excessively regardless of herself an 
regardful of others, as to be a nuisance. On being 
shown her chamber, she was so dreadfully sensible of 
its comforts as to suggest the inference that she would 
have preferred to pass the night on the mangle in the 
laundry. True, the Powlers and the Scadgerses were 
accustomed to splendor “ but it is my duty to remember,” 
Mrs. Sparsit was fond of observing with a lofty grace : 
particularly when any of the domestics were present, 
“ that what I was, I am no longer. Indeed,” said she, 
" if I could altogether cancel the remembrance that Mr. 
Sparsit was a Powler, or that I myself am related to 
the Scadgers family ; or if I could even revoke the fact, 
and make myself a person of common descent and ordi- 
nary connections ; I would gladly do so. I should think 
it, under existing circumstances, right to do so.” The 
same Hermitical state of mind led to her renunciation 
of made dishes and wines at dinner, until fairly com- 
manded by Mr. Bounderby to take them ; when she 
said, “ Indeed you are very good, sir ; ” and departed 
from a resolution of which she had made rather formal 
and public announcement, to “ wait for the simple mut- 
ton.” She was likewise deeply apologetic for wanting 
the salt; and, feeling amiably bound to bear out Mr. 
Bounderby to the fullest extent in the testimony he had 
oorne to her nerves, occasionally sat back in her chair 
and silently wept ; at which periods a tear of large di- 
mensions, like a crystal ear-ring, might be observed (01 


246 


HARD TIMES. 


rather, must be, for it insisted on public notice) sliding 
down her Roman nose. 

But Mrs. Sparsit’s greatest point, first and last, was 
her determination to pity Mr. Bounderby. There were 
occasions when in looking at him she was involuntarily 
moved to shake her head, as who would say, “ Alas poor 
Yorick ! ” After allowing herself to be betrayed into 
these evidences of emotion, she would force a lambent 
brightness, and would be fitfully cheerful, and would say, 
“ You have still good spirits, sir, I am thankful to find ; ” 
and would appear to hail it as a blessed dispensation that 
Mr. Bounderby bore up as he did. One idiosyncrasy 
for which she often apologized, she found it excessively 
difficult to conquer. She had a curious propensity to call 
Mrs. Bounderby “ Miss Gradgrind,” and yielded to it 
some three or four score times in the course of the even- 
ing. Her repetition of this mistake covered Mrs. Spar- 
sit with modest confusion ; but indeed, she said, it seemed 
so natural to say Miss Gradgrind : whereas, to persuade 
herself that the young lady whom she had had the happi- 
ness of knowing from a child could be really and truly 
Mrs. Bounderby, she found almost impossible. It was a 
further singularity of this remarkable case, that the 
more she thought about it, the more impossible it ap- 
peared ; “ the differences/’ she observed, “ being such.” 

In the drawing-room after dinner, Mr. Bounderby tried 
the case of the robbery, examined the witnesses, made 
notes of the evidence, found the suspected persons guilty, 
and sentenced them to the extreme punishment of the 
law. That done, Bitzer was dismissed to town with in- 
structions to recommend Tom to come home by the mail- 
train. 

When candles were brought, Mrs. Sparsit murmured, 


HARD TIMES. 


247 


“ Don’t be low, sir. Pray let me see you cheerful, sir, as 
I used to do.” Mr. Bounderby, upon whom these conso- 
lations had begun to produce the effect of making him, 
in a bull-headed blundering way, sentimental, sighed like 
some large sea-animal. “ I cannot bear to see you so, 
sir.” said Mrs. Sparsit. “ Try a hand at backgammon, 
sir, as you used tD do when I had the honor of living 
under your roof.” “ I haven’t played backgammon, 
ma’am,” said Mr. Bounderby, “ since that time.” “ No, 
sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit, soothingly, “ I am aware that you 
have not. I remember that Miss Gradgrind takes no 
interest in the game. But I shall be happy, sir, if you 
will condescend.” 

They played near a window, opening on the garden. 
It was a fine night : not moonlight, but sultry and fra- 
grant. Louisa and Mr. Harthouse strolled out into the 
garden, where their voices could be heard in the stillness, 
though not what they said. Mrs. Sparsit, from her place 
at the backgammon board, was constantly straining her 
eyes to pierce the shadows without. “ What’s the mat- 
ter, ma’am ? ” said Mr. Bounderby ; “ you don’t see a 
Fire, do you ? ” “ Oh dear no, sir,” returned Mrs. Spar- 
sit, u I was thinking of the dew.” “ What have you got 
to do with the dew, ma’am ? ” said Mr. Bounderby. 
“ It’s not myself, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, “ I am fear- 
ful of Miss Gradgrind’s taking cold.” “ She never takes 
cold,” said Mr. Bounderby. “ Really, sir ? ” said Mrs. 
Sparsit. And was affected with a cough in her throat. 

When the time drew near for retiring, Mr. Bounderby 
took a glass of water. “ Oh, sir ? ” said Mrs. Sparsit. 
“ Not your sherry warm, with lemon-peel and nutmeg ? ” 

Why I have got out of the habit of taking it now, 
ma’am,” said Mr. Bounderby. “The more’s the pity, 


i 


248 


HARD TIMES. 


sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit ; “ you are losing all your 
good old habits. Cheer up, sir ! If Miss Gradgrind will 
permit me, I will offer to make it for you, as I have 
often done.” 

Miss Gradgrind readily permitting Mrs. Sparsit to do 
anything she pleased, that considerate lady made the bev- 
erage, and handed it to Mr. Bounderby. “ It will do you 
good, sir. It will warm your heart. It is the sort of 
thing you want, and ought to take, sir.” And when Mr. 
Bounderby said, “ Your health, ma’am ! ” she answered 
with great feeling, “ Thank you, sir. The same to you, 
and happiness also.” Finally, she wished him good 
night, with great pathos ; and Mr. Bounderby went to 
bed, with a maudlin persuasion that he had been crossed 
in something tender, though he could not, for his life, 
have mentioned what it was. 

Long after Louisa had undressed and lain down, she 
watched and waited for her brother’s coming home. That 
could hardly be, she knew, until an hour past midnight ; 
but in the country silence, which did anything but calm 
the trouble of her thoughts, time lagged wearily. At 
last, whew the darkness and stillness had seemed for 
hours to thicken one another, she heard the bell at the 
gate. She felt as though she would have been glad 
that it rang on until daylight ; but it ceased, and the 
circles of its last sound spread out fainter and wider in 
the air, and all was dead again. 

She waited yet some quarter of an hour, as she judged. 
Then she arose, put on a loose robe, and went out of her 
room in the dark, and up the staircase to her brother’s 
room. Ilis door being shut, she softly opened it and 
spoke to him, approaching liis bed with a noiseless step. 

She kneeled down beside it, passed her arm over his 


HARD TIMES. 


249 


neck, and drew his face to hers. She knew that he only 
feigned to be asleep, but she said nothing to him. 

He started by and by as if he were just then awak- 
ened, and asked who that was, and what was the mat- 
ter ? 

“ Tom, have you anything to tell me ? If ever you 
loved me in your life, and have anything concealed from 
every one besides, tell it to me.” 

“ I don’t know what you mean, Loo. You have been 
dreaming.” 

“ My dear brother : ” she laid her head down on his 
pillow, and her hair flowed over him as if she would hide 
him from every one but herself : “ is there nothing that 
you have to tell me ? Is there nothing you can tell me 
if you will ? You can tell me nothing that will change 
me. O Tom, tell me the truth ! ” 

“ I don’t know what you mean, Loo ! ” 

“ As you lie here alone, my dear, in the melancholy 
night, so you must lie somewhere one night, when even 
I, if I am living then, shall have left you. As I am here 
beside you, barefoot, unclothed, undistinguishable in dark- 
ness, so must I lie through all the night of my decay, 
until I am dust. In the name of that time, Tom, tell me 
the truth now ! ” 

“ What is it you want to know ? ” 

“ You may be certain ; ” in the energy of her love she 
took him to her bosom as if he were a child ; “ that I 
will not reproach you. You may be certain that I will 
be compassionate and true to you. You may be certain 
Shat I will save you at whatever cost. O Tom, have you 
nothing to tell me ? Whisper very softly. Say only 
yes/ and I shall understand you ! ” 

She turned her ear to his lips, but he remained dog- 
gedly silent. 


250 


HARD TIMES. 


u Not a word, Tom ? ” 

“ How can I say Yes, or how can I say No, when 1 
don’t know what you mean? Loo, you are a brave, 
kind girl, worthy I begin to think of a better brother 
than I am. But I have nothing more to say. Go to 
bed, go to bed.” 

“ You are tired,” she whispered presently, more in her 
usual way. 

“ Yes, I am quite tired out.” 

“ You have been so hurried and disturbed to-day. Have 
any fresh discoveries been made ? ” 

“ Only those you have heard of, from — him.” 

“ Tom, have you said to any one that we made a visit 
to those people, and that we saw those three together ? ” 
“No. Didn’t you yourself particularly ask me to keep 
it quiet, when you asked me to go there with you ? ” 

Yes. But I did not know then what was going to 
happen.” 

“ Nor I neither. How could I ? ” 

He was very quick upon her with this retort. 

“ Ought I to say, after what has happened,” said his 
sister, standing by the bed — she had gradually with- 
drawn herself and risen, u that I made that visit? 
Should I say so ? Must I say so ? ” 

“ Good Heavens, Loo,” returned her brother, “ you 
are not in the habit of asking my advice. Say what you 
like. If you keep it to yourself, I shall keep it to my- 
self. If you disclose it, there’s an end of it.” 

It was too dark for either to see the other’s face ; but 
each seemed very attentive, and to consider before speak- 
ing. 

“ Tom, do you believe the man I gave the money to, is 
really implicated in this crime ? ” 


HARD TIMES. 


251 


u I don’t know. I don’t see why he shouldn’t be.” 

“ He seemed to me an honest man.” 

“ Another person may seem to you dishonest, and yet 
not be so.” 

There was a pause, for he had hesitated and stopped. 

“ In short,” resumed Tom, as if he had made up his 
mind, “ if you come to that, perhaps I was so far from 
being altogether in his favor, that I took him outside the 
door to tell him quietly, that I thought he might consider 
himself very well off to sjet such a windfall as he had got 
from my sister, and that I hoped he would make good 
use of it. You remember whether I took him out or not. 
I say nothing against the man ; he may be a very good 
fellow, for anything I know ; I hope he is.” 

“ Was he offended by what you said ? ” 

“ No, he took it pretty well ; he was civil enough. 
Where are you, Loo ? ” He sat up in bed and kissed 
her. “ Good night, my dear, good night ! ” 

“ You have nothing more to tell me ? ” 

“ No. What should I have ? You wouldn’t have me 
tell you a lie ? ” 

“ I wouldn’t have you do that to-night, Tom, of all the 
nights in your life ; many and much happier as I hope 
they will be.” 

“ Thank you, my dear Loo. I am so tired, that I am 
sure I wonder I don’t say anything to get to sleep. Go 
to bed, go to bed.” 

Kissing her again, he turned round, drew the coverlet 
over his head, and lay as still as if that time had come 
by which she had abjured him. She stood for some time 
at the bedside before she slowly moved away. She 
stopped at the door, looked back when she had opened 
: t, and asked him if he had called her ? But he lay still, 


252 


HARD TIMES. 


and she softly closed the door and returned to her 
room. 

Then the wretched boy looked cautiously up and found 
her gone, crept out of bed, fastened his door, and threw 
himself upon his pillow again : tearing his hair, morosely 
crying, grudgingly loving her, hatefully but impenitently 
spurning himself, and no less hatefully and unprofitably 
spurning all the good in the world. 


HARD TIMES. 


253 


CHAPTER IX. 

HEARING THE LAST OF IT. 

Mrs. Sparsit, lying by to recover the tone of hei 
nerves in Mr. Bounderby’s retreat, kept such a sharp 
look-out, night and day, under her Coriolanian eyebrows, 
that her eyes, like a couple of lighthouses on an iron- 
bound coast, might have warned all prudent mariners 
from that bold rock her Roman nose and the dark and 
craggy region in its neighborhood, but for the placidity 
of her manner. Although it was hard to believe that 
her retiring for the night could be anything but a form, 
so severely wide awake were those classical eyes of hers, 
and so impossible did it seem that her rigid nose could 
yield to any relaxing influence, yet her manner of sitting, 
smoothing her uncomfortable, not to say, gritty mittens 
(they were constructed of a cool fabric like a meat-safe), 
or of ambling to unknown places of destination with her 
foot in her cotton stirrup, was so perfectly serene, that 
most observers would have been constrained to suppose 
her a dove, embodied by some freak of nature, in the 
earthly tabernacle of a bird of the hook-beaked order. 

She was a most wonderful woman for prowling about 
the house. How she got from story to story was a mys- 
tery beyond solution. A lady so decorous in herself, and 
so highly connected, was not to be suspected of dropping 
over the banisters or sliding down them, yet her extraor- 


254 


HARD TIMES. 


dinary facility of locomotion suggested the wild idea. 
Another noticeable circumstance in Mrs. Sparsit was, 
that she was never hurried. She would shoot with con- 
summate velocity from the roof to the hall, yet would be 
in full possession of her breath and dignity on the mo- 
ment of her arrival there. Neither was she ever seen 
by human vision to go at a great pace. 

She took very kindly to Mr. Harthouse, and had some 
pleasant conversation with him soon after her arrival. 
She made him her stately courtesy in the garden, one 
morning before breakfast. 

“It appears but yesterday, sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit, 
“ that I had the honor of receiving you at the Bank, 
when you were so good as to wish to be made acquainted 
with Mr. Bounderby’s address.” 

“ An occasion, I am sure, not to be forgotten by myself 
in the course of Ages,” said Mr. Harthouse, inclining his 
head to Mrs. Sparsit with the most indolent of all possi- 
ble airs. 

“ We live in a singular world, sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit. 

“ I have had the honor, by a coincidence of which I am 
proud, to have made a remark, similar in effect, though 
not so epigrammatically expressed.” 

“ A singular world, I would say, sir,” pursued Mrs. 
Sparsit ; after acknowledging the compliment with a 
drooping of her dark eyebrows, not altogether so mild in 
its expression as her voice was in its dulcet tones ; ' as re- 
gards the intimacies we form at one time, with individ- 
uals we were quite ignorant of, at another. I recall, sir, 
that on that occasion you went so far as to say you were 
actually apprehensive of Miss Gradgrind.” 

“ Your memory does me more honor than my insignifi- 
cance deserves. I availed myself of your obliging hints 


HARD TIMES. 


255 


to correct my timidity, and it is unnecessary to add that 
they were perfectly accurate. Mrs. Sparsit’s talent for 
— in fact for anything requiring accuracy — with a com- 
bination of strength of mind — and F amily — is too 
habitually developed to admit of any question.’’ He was 
almost falling asleep over this compliment ; it took him 
so long to get through, and his mind wandered so much 
in the course of its execution. 

“ You found Miss Gradgrind — I really cannot call 
her Mrs. Bounderby ; it’s very absurd of me — as youth- 
ful as I described her ? ” asked Mrs. Sparsit, sweetly. 

“ You drew her portrait perfectly,” said Mr. Harthouse. 

“ Presented her dead ima^e.” 

© 

“ Very engaging, sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit, causing her 
mittens slowly to revolve over one another. 

“ Highly so.” 

“ It used to be considered,” said Mrs. Sparsit, “ that 
Miss Gradgrind was wanting in animation, but I confess 
she appears to me considerably and strikingly improved 
in that respect. Ay, and indeed here is Mr. Bounderby ! ” 
cried Mrs. Sparsit, nodding her head a great many times, 
as if she had been talking and thinking of no one else. 
“ How do you find yourself this morning, sir ? Pray let 
us see you cheerful, sir.” 

Now, these persistent assuagements of his misery, and 
lightenings of his load, had by this time begun to have 
the effect of making Mr. Bounderby softer than usua 
cowards Mrs. Sparsit, and harder than usual to mos 
other people from his wife downward. So, when Mrs. 
Sparsit said with forced lightness of heart, “ You want 
your breakfast, sir, but I daresay Miss Gradgrind will 
soon be here to preside at the table,” Mr. Bounderby 
replied, “ If I waited to be taken care of by my wife, 


256 


HARD TIMES. 


ma’am, I believe you know pretty well I should wait till 
Doomsday, so I’ll trouble you to take charge of the tea 
pot.” Mrs. Sparsit complied, and assumed her old posi- 
tion at table. 

This again made the excellent woman vastly sentimen* 
al. She was so humble withal, that when Louisa ap- 
>eared, she rose, protesting she never could think of sit- 
ting in that place under existing circumstances, often as she 
had had the honor of making Mr. Bounderby’s breakfast, 
before Mrs. Gradgrind — she begged pardon, she meant 
to say, Miss Bounderby — she hoped to be excused, bui 
she really could not get it right yet, though she trusted 
to become familiar with it by and by — had assumed hei 
present position. It was only (she observed) because 
Miss Gradgrind happened to be a little late, and Mr 
Bounderby’s time was so very precious, and she knew it 
of old to be so essential that he should breakfast to the 
moment, that she had taken the liberty of complying with 
his request ; long as his will had been a law to her. 

“ There ! Stop where you are, ma’am,” said Mr 
Bounderby, “ stop where you are ! Mrs. Bounderby will 
be very glad to be relieved of the trouble, I believe.” 

“ Don’t say that, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, almost 
with severity, “ because that is very unkind to Mrs. 
Bounderby. And to be unkind is not to be you, sir.” 

“ You may set your mind at rest, ma’am. — You can 
take it very quietly, can’t you, Loo? ’’said Mr. Boun 
lerby, in a blustering way to his wife. 

“ Of course. It is of no moment. "Why should it be 
of any importance to me ? ” 

“ Why should it be of any importance to any one, 
Mi’S. Sparsit, ma’am ? ” said Mr. Bounderby, swelling 
with a sense of slight. “You attach too much impor- 


HARD TIMES. 


257 


tance to these things, ma’am. By George, you’ll be 
corrupted in some of your notions here. You are old- 
fashioned, ma’am. You are behind Tom Gradgrind’s 
children’s time.” 

“ What is the matter with you ? ” asked Louisa, coldly 
surprised. “ What has given you offence ? ” 

“ Offence ! ” repeated Bounderby. “ Do you suppose 
if there was any offence given me, I shouldn’t name it, 
and request to have it corrected ? I am a straightfor- 
ward man, I believe. I don’t go beating about for side- 
winds.” 

“ I suppose no one ever had occasion to think you too 
diffident, or too delicate,” Louisa answered him com- 
posedly : “ I have never made that objection to you, 

either as a child or as a woman. I don’t understand 
what you would have.” 

u Have ? ” returned Mr. Bounderby. “ Nothing. Other- 
wise, don’t you, Loo Bounderby, know thoroughly 
well that I, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, would 
have it ? ” 

She looked at him, as he struck the table and made 
the teacups ring, with a proud color in her face that was 
a new change, Mr. Harthouse thought. “ You are in- 
comprehensible this morning,” said Louisa. “ Pray take 
no further trouble to explain yourself. I am not curious 
to know your meaning. What does it matter ! ” 

Nothing more was said on this theme, and Mr. Hart- 
house was soon idly gay on indifferent subjects. But 
from this day, the Sparsit action upon Mr. Bounderby 
threw Louisa and James Harthouse more together, and 
strengthened the dangerous alienation from her husband 
and confidence against him with another, into which she 
had fallen by degrees so fine that she could not retrace 

VOL. I. 17 


258 


HARD 1IMES. 


them if she tried. But, whether she ever tried or no 
lay hidden in her own closed heart. 

Mrs. Sparsit was so much affected on this particular 
occasion, that, assisting Mr. Bounderby to his hat after 
breakfast, and being then alone with him in the hall, she 
mprinted a chaste kiss upon his hand, murmured “ My 
benefactor ! ” and retired, overwhelmed with grief. Yet 
it is an indubitable fact, within the cognizance of this 
history, that five minutes after he had left the house in 
the self-same hat, the same descendant of the Scadgerses 
and connection by matrimony of the Powlers, shook her 
right-hand mitten at his portrait, made a contemptuous 
grimace at that work of art, and said, “ Serve you right, 
you Noodle, and I am glad of it ! ” 

Mr. Bounderby had not been long gone, when Bitzer 
appeared. Bitzer had come down by train, shrieking 
and rattling over the long line of arches that bestrode 
the wild country of past and present coalpits, with an 
express from Stone Lodge. It was a hasty note to in- 
form Louisa, that Mrs. Gradgrind lay very ill. She had 
never been well within her daughter’s knowledge ; but, 
she had declined within the last few days, and continued 
sinking all through the night, and was now as nearly 
dead, as her limited capacity of being in any state that 
implied the ghost of an intention to get out of it, allowed. 

Accompanied by the lightest of porters, fit colorless 
servitor at Death’s door when Mrs. Gradgrind knocked, 
Louisa rumbled to Coketown, over the coalpits past and 
present, and was whirled into its smoky jaws. She dis- 
missed the messenger to his own devices, and rode away 
to her old home. 

She had seldom been there since her marriage. Her 
father was usually sifting and sifting at his parliamentary 


HARD TIMES. 


259 


cinder-heap in London (without being observed to turn 
up many precious articles among the rubbish), and was 
still hard at it in the national dust-yard. Her mother 
had taken it rather as a disturbance than otherwise, to be 
visited, as she reclined upon her sofa ; young people, 
Louisa felt herself all unfit for ; Sissy she had never 
softened to again, since the night when the strollers child 
had raised her eyes to look at Mr. Bounderby’s intended 
wife. She had no inducements to go back, and had 
rarely gone. 

Neither, as she approached her old home now, did any 
of the best influences of old home descend upon her. 
The dreams of childhood — its airy fables ; its graceful, 
beautiful, humane, impossible adornments of the world 
beyond : so good to be believed in once, so good 
to be remembered when outgrown, for then the least 
among them rises to the stature of a great Charity in the 
heart, suffering little children to come into the midst of 
it, and to keep with their pure hands a garden in the 
stony ways of this world, wherein it were better for all 
the children of Adam that they should oftener sun them- 
selves, simple and trustful, and not worldly-wise — what 
had she to do with these ? Remembrances of how she 
had journeyed to the little that she knew, by the en- 
chanted roads of what she and millions of innocent 
creatures had hoped and imagined ; of how, first coming 
ipon Reason through the tender light of Fancy, she had 
een it a beneficent god, deferring to gods great as 
itself : not a grim Idol, cruel and cold, with its victims 
bound hand to foot, and its big dumb shape set up with a 
sightless stare, never to be moved by anything but so 
many calculated tons of leverage — what had she to do 
with these ? Her remembrances of home and childhood 


s 


260 


HARD TIMES. 


were remembrances of the drying up of every spring and 
fountain in her young heart as it gushed out. The golden 
waters were not there. They were flowing for the fertil- 
ization of the land where grapes are gathered from thorns, 
and figs from thistles. 

She went, with a heavy, hardened kind of sorrow upon 
her, into the house and into her mother’s room. Since 
the time of her leaving home, Sissy had lived with the 
rest of the family on equal terms. Sissy was at her 
mother’s side ; and Jane, her sister, now- ten or twelve 
years old, was in the room. 

There was great trouble before it could be made know r n 
to Mrs. Gradgrind that her eldest child was there. She 
reclined, propped up, from mere habit, on a couch : as 
nearly in her old usual attitude, as anything so helpless 
could be kept in. She had positively refused to take to 
her bed ; on the ground that if she did, she would never 
hear the last of it. 

Her feeble voice sounded so far away in her bundle 
of shawls, and the sound of another voice addressing her 
seemed to take such a long time in getting down to her 
ears, that she might have been lying at the bottom of a 
well. The poor lady was nearer Truth than she ever 
had been : which had much to do with it. 

On being told that Mrs. Bounderby was there, she 
replied, at cross-purposes, that she had never called him 
by that name since he married Louisa ; that pending her 
choice of an objectionable name, she had called him J ; 
and that she could not at present depart from that regula- 
tion, not being yet provided with a permanent substitute. 
Louisa had sat by her for some minutes, and had spoken 
to her often, before she arrived at a clear understanding 
who it was. She then seemed to come to it all at once. 


HARD TIMES. 


261 


“ Well, my dear/’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, “and I hope 
you are going on satisfactorily to yourself. It was all 
your father’s doing. He set his heart upon it. And he 
ought to know.’’ 

“ I want to hear of you, mother ; not of myself.” 

“ You want to hear of me, my dear ? That’s some- 
thing new, I am sure, when anybody wants to hear of me. 
Not at all well, Louisa. Very faint and giddy.” 

“ Are you in pain, dear mother ? ” 

“ I think there’s a pain somewhere in the room,” said 
Mrs. Gradgrind, “but I couldn’t positively say that I 
have got it.” 

After this strange speech, she lay silent for some time. 
Louisa, holding her hand, could feel no pulse ; but kiss- 
ing it, could see a slight thin thread of life in fluttering 
motion. 

“ You very seldom see your sister,” said Mrs. Grad- 
grind. “ She grows like you. I wish you would look 
at her. Sissy, bring her here.” 

She was brought, and stood with her hand in her sis- 
ter’s. Louisa had observed her with her arm round 
Sissy’s neck, and she felt the difference of this ap- 
proach. 

“ Do you see the likeness, Louisa ? ” 

“ Yes, mother. I should think her like me. But ” — 
“ Eh ? Yes, I always say so,” Mrs. Gradgrind cried, 
with unexpected quickness. “ And that reminds me. 
I — I want to speak to you, my dear. Sissy, my good 
girl, leave us alone a minute.” 

Louisa had relinquished the hand : had thought that 
her sister’s was a better and brighter face than hers had 
ever been : had seen in it, not without a rising feeling of 
resentment, even in that place and at that time, some- 


262 


HARD TIMES. 


thing of the gentleness of the other face in the room 
the sweet face with the trusting eyes, made paler than 
watching and sympathy made it, by the rich dark hair. 

Left alone with her mother, Louisa saw her lying with 
an awful lull upon her face, like one who was floating 
away upon some great water, all resistance over, content 
to be carried down the stream. She put the shadow of 
a hand to her lips again, and recalled her. 

“ You were going to speak to me, mother.” 

“Eh? Yes, to be sure, my dear. You know your 
father is almost always away now, and therefore I must 
write to him about it.” 

“ About what, mother ? Don’t be troubled. About 
what ? ” 

“ You must remember, my dear, that whenever I have 
said anything, on any subject, I have never heard the 
last of it ; and consequently, that I have long left off 
saying anything.” 

“ I can hear you, mother.” But, it was only by dint of 
bending down to her ear, and at the same time attentively 
watching the lips as they moved, that she could link such 
faint and broken sounds into any chain of connection. 

“ You learnt a great deal, Louisa, and so did your 
brother. Ologies of all kinds from morning to night. 
If there is any Ology left, of any description, that has 
not been worn to rags in this house, all I can say is, I 
hope I shall never hear its name.” 

“ I can hear you, mother, when you have strength to 
go on.” This, to keep her from floating away. 

u But there is something — not an Ology at all — that 
your father has missed, or forgotten, Louisa. I don’t 
know what it is. I have often sat with Sissy near me, 
and thought about it. I shall never get its name now. 


HARD TIMES. 


263 


But your father may. It makes me restless. I want to 
write to him, to find out for God’s sake what it is. Give 
me a pen, give me a pen.” 

Even the power of restlessness was gone, except from 
the poor head, which could just turn from side to side. 

She fancied, however, that her request had been com 
plied with, and that the pen she could not have held was 
in her hand. It matters little what figures of wonderful 
no-meaning she began to trace upon her wrappers. The 
hand soon stopped in the midst of them ; the light that 
had always been feeble and dim behind the weak trans- 
parency, went out ; and even Mrs. Gradgrind, emerged 
from the shadow in which man walketh and disquieteth 
himself in vain, took upon her the dread solemnity of the 
sages, and patriarchs. 


264 


HARD TIMES* 


CHAPTER X. 

MRS. SPARSIT’S STAIRCASE. 

Mrs. Sparsit’s nerves being slow to recover their 
tone, the worthy woman made a stay of some weeks in 
duration at Mr. Bounderby ’s retreat, where, notwithstand- 
ing her anchorite turn of mind based upon her becoming 
consciousness of her altered station, she resigned herself 
with noble fortitude to lodging, as one may say, in clover, 
and feeding on the fat of the land. During the whole 
term of this recess from the guardianship of the Bank, 
Mrs. Sparsit was a pattern of consistency ; continuing to 
take such pity on Mr. Bounderby to his face, as is rarely 
taken on man, and to call his portrait a Noodle to its face, 
with the greatest acrimony and contempt. 

Mr. Bounderby, having got it into his explosive com- 
position that Mrs. Sparsit was a highly superior woman 
to perceive that he had that general cross upon him in 
his deserts (for he had not yet settled what it was), and 
further that Louisa would have objected to her as a fre- 
quent visitor if it had comported with his greatness that 
she should object to anything he chose to do, resolved net 
to lose sight of Mrs. Sparsit easily. So when her nerves 
were strung up to the pitch of again consuming sweet- 
breads in solitude, he said to her at the dinner-table, on the 
day before her departure, “ I tell you what, ma’am ; you 
shall come down here of a Saturday, while the fine 




HARD TIMES. 


265 


weather lasts, and stay till Monday.’’ To which Mrs. 
Sparsit returned, in effect, though not of the Mahomedan 
persuasion, “ To hear is to obey.” 

Now, Mrs. Sparsit was not a poetical woman ; but she 
took an idea in the nature of an allegorical fancy, into her 
head. Much watching of Louisa, and much consequent 
observation of her impenetrable demeanor, which keenly 
whetted and sharpened Mrs. Sparsit’s edge, must have 
given her as it were a lift, in the way of inspiration. 
She erected in her mind a mighty Staircase, with a dark 
pit of shame and ruin at the bottom ; and down those 
stairs, from day to day, and hour to hour, she saw Louisa 
coming. 

It became the business of Mrs. Sparsit’s life, to look 
up at her staircase, and to watch Louisa coming down. 
Sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, sometimes several 
steps at one bout, sometimes stopping, never turning back. 
If she had once turned back, it might have been the 
death of Mrs. Sparsit in spleen and grief. 

She had been descending steadily, to the day, and on 
the day, when Mr. Bounderby issued the weekly invita- 
tion recorded above. Mrs. Sparsit was in good spirits, 
and inclined to be conversational. 

“ And pray, sir,” said she, “ if I may venture to ask a 
question appertaining to any subject on which you show 
reserve — which is indeed hardy in me, for I well know 
you have a reason for everything you do — have you re- 
ceived intelligence respecting the robbery ? ” 

“ Why, ma'am, no ; not yet. Under the circum- 
stances, I didn't expect it yet. Home wasn’t built in a 
day, ma’am.” 

“ Very true, sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her head 
“ Nor yet in a week, ma’am.” 


266 


HARD TIMES. 


“ No, indeed, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit with a gentle 
melancholy upon her. 

“ In a similar manner, ma’am,” said Bounderby, “ I 
can wait, you know. If Romulus and Remus could 
wait, Josiah Bounderby can wait. They were better off 
in their youth than 1 was, however. They had a she 
wolf for a nurse : I had only a she-wolf for a grand 
mother. She didn't give any milk, ma’am ; she gave 
bruises. She was a regular Alderney at that.” 

“ Ah ! ” Mrs. Sparsit sighed and shuddered. 

“ No, ma’am,” continued Bounderby, “ I have not heard 
anything more about it. It's in hand, though ; and young 
Tom, who rather sticks to business at present — something 
new for him ; he hadn’t the schooling 1 had — is helping. 
My injunction is, Keep it quiet, and let it seem to blow 
over. Do what you like under the rose, but don’t give a 
sign of what you’re about ; or half a hundred of ’em 
will combine together and get this fellow who has bolted, 
out of reach for good. Keep it quiet, and the thieves 
will grow in confidence by little and little, and we shall 
have ’em.” 

“ Very sagacious indeed, sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit. “ Very 
interesting. The old woman you mentioned, sir ” — 

“ The old woman I mentioned, ma’am,” said Boun- 
derby, cutting the matter short, as it was nothing to 
boast about, “ is not laid hold of ; but, she may take her 
oath she will be, if that is any satisfaction to her villa 
nous old mind. In the mean time, ma’am, I am of opinion 
if you ask me my opinion, that the less she is talked 
about, the better.” 

That same evening, Mrs. Sparsit, in her chamber-win- 
dow, resting from her packing operations, looked towards 
her great staircase and saw Louisa still descending. 


HARD TIMES. 


267 


She sat by Mr. Harthouse, in an alcove in the garden, 
talking very low, he stood leaning over her, as they whis- 
pered together, and his face almost touched her hair. 
“ If not quite ! ” said Mrs. Sparsit, straining her hawk’s 
eyes to the utmost. Mrs. Sparsit was too distant to hear 
a word of their discourse, or even to know that they 
were speaking softly, otherwise than from the expression 
of their figures ; but what they said was this : 

“ You recollect the man, Mr. Harthouse ? ” ? 

“ Oh, perfectly ! ” 

“ His face, and his manner, and what he said ? ” 

“ Perfectly. And an infinitely dreary person he ap- 
peared to me to be. Lengthy and prosy in the extreme. 
It was knowing to hold forth, in the humble-virtue school 
of eloquence ; but, I assure you I thought at the time, 

‘ My good fellow, you are over-doing this ! ’ ” 

“ It has been very difficult to me to think ill of that 
man.” 

“ My dear Louisa — as Tom says.” Which he never 
did say. “ You know no good of the fellow ? ” 

“ No, certainly.” 

“ Nor of any other such person ? ” 

“ How can I,” she returned, with more of her first 
manner on her than he had lately seen, “ when I know 
nothing of them, men or women ? ” 

“ My dear Louisa, then consent to receive the submis- 
sive representation of your devoted friend, who knows 
something of several varieties of his excellent fellow- 
creatures — for excellent they are, I am quite ready to 
believe, in spite of such little foibles as always helping 
themselves to what they can get hold of. This fellow 
talks. Well; every fellow talks. He professes morality. 
Well ; all sorts of humbugs profess morality. From the 


268 


HARD TIMES. 


Hbuse of Commons to the House of Correction, there is 
a general profession of morality, except among our peo- 
ple ; it really is that exception which makes our people 
quite reviving. You saw and heard the case. Here 
was one of the huffy classes pulled up extremely short by 
my esteemed friend Mr. Bounderby — who, as we know, 
is not possessed of that delicacy which would soften so 
tight a hand. The member of the fluffy classes was in- 
jured, exasperated, left the house grumbling, met some- 
body who proposed to him to go in for some share in this 
Bank business, went in, put something in his pocket 
which had nothing in it before, and relieved his mind 
extremely. Really he would have been an uncommon, 
instead of a common, fellow, if he had not availed him- 
self of such an opportunity. Or he may have originated 
it altogether, if he had the cleverness.” 

“ I almost feel as though it must be bad in me,” re- 
turned Louisa, after sitting thoughtful awhile, “ to be so 
ready to agree with you, and to be so lightened in my 
heart by what you say.” 

66 1 only say what is reasonable ; nothing worse. I 
have talked it over with my friend Tom more than once 
— of course I remain on terms of perfect confidence with 
Tom — and he is quite of my opinion, and I am quite of 
his. Will you walk ? ” 

They strolled away, among the lanes, beginning to be 
indistinct in the twilight — she leaning on his arm — and 
she little thought how she was going down, down, down, 
Mrs. Sparsit’s staircase. 

Night and day, Mrs. Sparsit kept it standing. When 
Louisa had arrived at the bottom and disappeared in the 
gulf, it might fall in upon her if it would ; but, until 
then, there it was to be, a Building, before Mrs. Sparsit’s 


HARD TIMES. 


2fi9 


eyes. And there Louisa always was, upon it. And 
always gliding down, down, down ! 

Mrs. Sparsit saw James Harthouse come and go; she 
heard of him here and there ; she saw the changes of the 
face he had studied ; she, too, remarked to a nicety how 
and when it clouded, how and when it cleared ; she kep 
her black eyes wide open, with no touch of pity, with no 
touch of compunction, all absorbed in interest. In the 
interest of seeing her, ever drawing, with no hand to stay 
her, nearer and nearer to the bottom of this new Giants’ 
Staircase. 

With all her deference for Mr. Bounderby as contra- 
distinguished from his portrait, Mrs. Sparsit had not the 
smallest intention of interrupting the descent. Eager to 
see it accomplished, and yet patient, she waited for the 
last fall, as for the ripeness and fulness of the harvest of 
her hopes. Hushed in expectancy, she kept her wary 
gaze upon the stairs ; and seldom so much as darkly 
shook her right mitten (with her fist in it), at the figure 
coming down, 


270 


HARD TIMES. 


CHAPTER XI. 

LOWER AND LOWER. 

Tiie iigure descended the great stairs, steadily, stead- 
ily ; always verging, like a weight in deep water, to the 
black gulf at the bottom. 

Mr. Gradgrind, apprised of his wife’s decease, made 
an expedition from London, and buried her in a business- 
like manner. He then returned with promptitude to the 
national cinder-heap, and resumed his sifting for the odds 
and ends he wanted, and his throwing of the dust about 
into the eyes of other people who wanted other odds and 
ends — in fact resumed his parliamentary duties. 

In the mean time, Mrs. Sparsit kept unwinking watch 
and ward. Separated from her staircase, all the week, 
by the length of iron road dividing Coketown from the 
country-house, she yet maintained her cat-like observa- 
tion of Louisa, through her husband, through her brother, 
through James Harthouse, through the outsides of letters 
and packets, through everything animate and inanimate 
that at any time went near the stairs. “ Your foot on 
the last step, my lady,” said Mrs. Sparsit, apostrophizing 
the descending figure, with the aid of her threatening 
mitten, “ and all your art shall never blind me.” 

Art or nature though, the original stock of Louisa’s 
character or the graft of circumstances upon it, — her 
curious reserve did baffle, while it stimulated, one as 


HARD TIMES. 


271 


sagacious as Mrs. Sparsit. There were times when Mr. 
James Harthouse was not sure of her. There were 
times when he could not read the face he had studied so 
long ; and when this lonely girl was a greater mystery 
to him, than any woman of the world with a ring of 
satellites to help her. 

So the time went on ; until it happened that Mr 
Bounderby was called away from home by business 
which required his presence elsewhere, for three or four 
days. It was on a Friday that he intimated this to Mrs. 
Sparsit at the Bank, adding, “ But you’ll go down to- 
morrow, ma’am, all the same. You’ll go down just as if I 
was there. It will make no difference to you.” 

“ Pray, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, reproachfully, “ let 
me beg you not to say that. Your absence will make 
a vast difference to me, sir, as I think you very well 
know.” 

“Well, ma’am, then you must get on in my absence as 
well as you can,” said Bounderby, not displeased. 

“ Mr. Bounderby,” retorted Mrs. Sparsit, “ your will 
is to me a law, sir ; otherwise, it might be my inclination 
to dispute your kind commands, not feeling sure that it 
will be quite so agreeable to Miss Gradgrind to receive 
me, as it ever is to your own munificent hospitality. 
But you shall say no more, sir. I will go, upon your 
invitation.” 

% 

“ Why, when I invite you to my house, ma’am,” said 
Bounderby, opening his eyes, “ I should hope you want 
no other invitation.” 

“ No, indeed, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, “ I should 
hope not. Say no more, sir. I would, sir, I could see 
you gay again.” 

“ What do you mean, ma’am ? ” blustered Bounderby. 


272 


HARD TIMES. 


“ Sir,” rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, “ there was wont to be 
an elasticity in you which I sadly miss. Be buoyant, 
sir ! ” 

Mr. Bounderby, under the influence of this difficult 
adjuration, backed up by her compassionate eye, could 
only scratch his head in a feeble and ridiculous manner 
and afterwards assert himself at a distance, by being 
heard to bully the small fry of business all the morning. 

“ Bitzer,” said Mrs. Sparsit that afternoon, when her- 
patron was gone on his journey, and the Bank was clos- 
ing, “ present my compliments to young Mr. Thomas, and 
ask him if he would step up and partake of a lamb chop 
and walnut ketchup, with a glass of India ale ? ” Young 
Mr. Thomas being usually ready for anything in that 
way, returned a gracious answer, and followed on its 
heels. 66 Mr. Thomas,” said Mrs. Sparsit, “ these plain 
Hands being on table, I thought you might be tempted.” 
“ Thank’ee, Mrs. Sparsit,” said the whelp. And gloomily 
fell to. 

u How is Mr. Ilarthouse, Mr. Tom ? ” asked Mrs. 
Sparsit. 

“ Oh, he’s all right,” said Tom. 

“ Where may he be at present ? ” Mrs. Sparsit asked 
in a light conversational manner, after mentally devoting 
the whelp to the Furies for being so uncommunicative. 

“ He is shooting in Yorkshire,” said Tom. “ Sent Loo 
a basket half as big as a church, yesterday.” 

“ The kind of a gentleman, now,” said Mrs. Sparsit, 
sweetly, “ whom one might wager to be a good shot ! ” 

“ Crack,” said Tom. 

He had long been a down-looking young fellow, but 
this characteristic had so increased of late, that he never 
raised his eyes to any face for three seconds together. 


:mes. 


273 


Mrs. Sparsit consequently had ample means of watching 
his looks, if she were so inclined. 

“ Mr. Harthouse is a great favorite of mine,” said Mrs 
Sparsit, “ as indeed he is of most people. May we ex 
pect to see him again shortly, Mr. Tom ? ” 

“ Why I expect to see him to-morrow,” returned the 
whelp. 

“ Good news ! ” cried Mrs. Sparsit, blandly. 

“ I have got an appointment with him to meet him in 
the evening at the station here,” said Tom, “ and I am 
going to dine with him afterwards, I believe. He is not 
coming down to the country-house for a week or so, 
being due somewhere else. At least, he says so ; but I 
shouldn’t wonder if he was to stop here over Sunday, 
and stray that way.” 

“ Which reminds me ! ” said Mrs. Sparsit. “ Would 
you remember a message to your sister, Mr. Tom, if I 
was to charge you with one ? ” 

u Well ? I’ll try,” returned the reluctant whelp, “if it 
isn’t a long un.” 

“ It is merely my respectful compliments,” said Mrs. 
Sparsit, “ and I fear I may not trouble her with my so- 
ciety this week ; being still a little nervous, and better 
perhaps by my poor self.” 

“ Oh ! If that’s all,” observed Tom, “ it wouldn’t much 
matter, even if I was to forget it, for Loo’s not likely to 
think of you unless she sees you.” 

Having paid for his entertainment with this agreeable 
compliment, he relapsed into a hangdog silence until there 
was no more India ale left, when he said, “ Well, Mrs. 
Sparsit, I must be off ! ” and went off. 

Next day, Saturday, Mrs. Sparsit sat at her window 

all day long : looking at the customers coming in and 
VOL. I. 18 


274 


HARr 


out, watching the postmen an eye on the gen- 
eral traffic of the street, r - • many things in her 

mind, but, above all, keeping her attention on her stair- 
case. The evening come, she put on her bonnet and 
shawl, and went quietly out : having her reasons for 
hovering in a furtive way about the station by which 
a passenger would arrive from Yorkshire, and for pre- 
ferring to peep into it round pillars and corners, and 
out of ladies’ waiting-room windows, to appearing in its 
precincts openly. 

Tom was in attendance, and loitered about until the 
expected train came in. It brought no Mr. Harthouse. 
Tom waited until the crowd had dispersed, and the bustle 
was over ; and then referred to a posted list of trains, 
and took counsel with porters. That done, he strolled 
away idly, stopping in the street and looking up it and 
down it, and lifting his hat off and putting it on again, 
and yawning and stretching himself, and exhibiting all 
the symptoms of mortal weariness to be expected in one 
who had still to wait until the next train should come in, 
an hour and forty minutes hence. 

“ This is a device to keep him out of the way,” said 
Mrs. Sparsit, starting from the dull office-window whence 
she had watched him last. “ Harthouse is with his sister 
now ! ” 

It was the conception of an inspired moment, and she 
shot off with her utmost swiftness to work it out. The 
station for the country house was at the opposite end of 
the town, the time was short, the road not easy ; but she 
was so quick in pouncing on a disengaged coach, so quick 
in darting out of it, producing her money, seizing her 
ticket, and diving into the train, that she was borne along 
the arches spanning the land of coal-pits past and present, 


\ 


HARD TIMES. 


275 


as if she had been caught up in a cloud and whirled 
away. 

All the journey, immovable in the air though never 
left behind ; plain to the dark eyes of her mind, as the 
electric wires which ruled a colossal strip of music-paper 
out of the evening sky, were plain to the dark eyes of 
her body ; Mrs. Sparsit saw her staircase, with the figure 
coming down. Very near the bottom now. Upon the 
brink of the abyss. 

An overcast September evening, just at nightfall, saw 
beneath its drooping eyelid Mrs. Sparsit glide out of her 
carriage, pass down the wooden steps of the little station 
into a stony road, cross it into a green lane, and become 
hidden in a summer-growth of leaves and branches. 
One or two late birds sleepily chirping in their nests, and 
a bat heavily crossing and recrossing her, and the reek 
of her own tread in the thick dust that felt like velvet, 
were all Mrs. Sparsit heard or saw until she very softly 
closed a gate. 

She went up to the house, keeping within the shrub- 
bery, and went round it, peeping between the leaves at 
the lower windows. Most of them were open, as they 
usually were in such warm weather, but there were no 
lights yet, and all was silent. She tried the garden with 
no better effect. She thought of the wood, and stole 
towards it, heedless of long grass and briers : of worms, 
snails, and slugs, and all the creeping things that be. 
With her dark eyes and her hook nose warily in ad- 
vance of her, Mrs. Sparsit softly crushed her way 
through the thick undergrowth, so intent upon her object 
that she probably would have done no less, if the wood 
had been a wood of adders. 


276 


HARD TIMES. 


The smaller birds might have tumbled out of their 
nests, fascinated by the glittering of Mrs. Sparsit’s eyes 
in the gloom, as she stopped and listened. 

Low voices close at hand. His voice and hers. The 
appointment was a device to keep the brother away! 
There they were yonder, by the felled tree. 

Bending low among the dewy grass, Mrs. Sparsit ad« 
vanced closer to them. She drew herself up, and stood 
behind a tree, like Robinson Crusoe in his ambuscade 
against the savages ; so near to them that at a spring, 
and that no great one, she could have touched them both. 
He was there secretly, and had not shown himself at the 
house. He had come on horseback, and must have 
passed through the neighboring fields ; for his horse was 
tied to the meadow side of the fence, within a few paces. 

(C My dearest love,” said he, “ what could I do ? Know- 
ing you were alone, was it possible that I could stay 
away ? ” 

“ You may hang your head to make yourself the more 
attractive ; I don’t know what they see in you when you 
hold it up,” thought Mrs. Sparsit ; “ but you little think, 
my dearest love, whose eyes are on you ! ” 

That she hung her head, was certain. She urged him 
to go away, she commanded him to go away ; but she 
neither turned her face to him, nor raised it. Yet it was 
remarkable that she sat as still as ever the amiable 
voman in ambuscade had seen her sit, at any period in 
ler life. Her hands rested in one another, like the 
nands of a statue ; and even her manner of speaking 
was not hurried. 

“ My dear child,” said Harthouse ; Mrs. Sparsit saw 
with delight that his arm embraced her ; 66 will you not 
bear with my society for a little while ? ” 


HARD TIMES. 


277 


“ Not here.” 

“ Where, Louisa ? ” 

“ Not here.” 

“ But we have so liitle time to make so mucli of, and 
I have come so far, and am altogether so devoted, and 
distracted. There never was a slave at once so devoted 
and ill-used by his mistress. To look for your sunny 
welcome that has warmed me into life, and to be re- 
ceived in your frozen manner, is heart-rending.” 

“ Am I to say again, that I must be left to myself 
here ? ” 

“ But we must meet, my dear Louisa. Where shall 
we meet ? ” 

They both started. The listener started, guiltily, too ; 
for she thought there was another listener among the 
trees. It was only rain, beginning to fall fast, in heavy 
drops. 

“ Shall I ride up to the house a few minutes hence, 
innocently supposing that its master is at home and will 
be charmed to receive me ? ” 

“ No ! ” 

“ Your cruel commands are implicitly to be obeyed ; 
though I am the most unfortunate fellow in the world, I 
believe, to have been insensible to all other women, and 
to have fallen prostrate at last under the foot of the most 
beautiful, and the most engaging, and the most imperi- 
ous. My dearest Louisa, I cannot go myself, or let you 
go, in this hard abuse of your power.” 

Mrs. Sparsit saw him detain her with his encircling 
arm, and heard him then and there, within her (Mrs. 
Sparsit’s) greedy hearing, tell her how he loved her, and 
now she was the stake for which he ardently desired to 
play away all that he hac in life. The objects he had 


278 


HARD TIMES. 


lately pursued, turned worthless beside her ; such sue. 
cess as was almost in his grasp, he flung away from him 
like the dirt it was, compared with her. Its pursuit, 
nevertheless, if it kept him near her, or its renunciation 
if it took him from her, or flight if she shared it, or se- 
crecy if she commanded it, or any fate, or every fate, 
all was alike to him, so that she was true to him, — the 
man who had seen how cast away she was, whom she 
had inspired at their first meeting with an admiration, 
an interest, of which he had thought himself incapable, 
whom she had received into her confidence, who was 
devoted to her and adored her. All this, and more, in 
his hurry, and in hers, in the whirl of her own gratified 
malice, in the dread of being discovered, in the rapidly 
increasing noise of heavy rain among the leaves, and a 
thunder-storm rolling up — Mrs. Sparsit received into 
her mind, set off with such an unavoidable halo of con- 
fusion and indistinctness, that when at length he climbed 
the fence and led his horse away, she was not sure where 
they were to meet, or when, except that they had said 
it was to be that night. 

But one of them yet remained in the darkness before 
her ; and while she tracked that one she must be right. 
“ Oh, my dearest love,” thought Mrs. Sparsit, “ you little 
think how well attended you are ! ” 

Mrs. Sparsit saw her out of the wood, and saw her 
enter the house. What to do next ? It rained now, in 
a sheet of water. Mrs. Sparsit’s white stockings were 
of many colors, green predominating ; prickly things 
were in her shoes ; caterpillars slung themselves, in 
hammocks of their own making, from various parts of 
her dress ; rills ran from her bonnet and her Roman 
nose. In such condition, Mrs. Sparsit stood hidden 


HARD TIMES. 


270 


in the density of the shrubbery, considering what 
next ? 

Lo, Louisa coming out of the house ! Hastily cloaked 
and muffled, and stealing away. She elopes ! She falls 
from the lowermost stair, and is swallowed up in the 
gulf ! 

Indifferent to the rain, and moving with a quick deter- 
mined step, she struck into a side-path parallel with the 
ride. Mrs. Sparsit followed in the shadow of the trees, 
at but a short distance ; for it was not easy to keep a 
figure in view going quickly through the umbrageous 
darkness. 

When she stopped to close the side-gate without noise, 
Mrs. Sparsit stopped. When she went on, Mrs. Sparsit 
went on. She went by the way Mrs. Sparsit had come, 
emerged from the green lane, crossed the stony road, and 
ascended the wooden steps to the railroad. A train for 
Coketown would come through presently, Mrs. Sparsit 
knew ; so she understood Coketown to be her first place 
of destination. 

In Mrs. Sparsit’s limp and streaming state, no exten- 
sive precautions were necessary to change her usual ap- 
pearance ; but, she stopped under the lee of the station 
wall, tumbled her shawl into a new shape, and put it on 
over her bonnet. So disguised, she had no fear of being 
recognized when she followed up the railroad steps, and 
paid her money in the small office. Louisa sat waiting 
in a corner. Mrs. Sparsit sat waiting in another corner. 
Both listened to the thunder, which was loud, and to the 
rain, as it washed off the roof, and pattered on the para- 
pets of the arches. Two or three lamps were rained out 
and blown out ; so, both saw the lightning to advantage 
as it quivered and zig-zagged on the iron tracks. 


280 


HARD TIMES. 


The seizure of the station with a fit of trembling, 
gradually deepening to a complaint of the heart, an- 
nounced the train. Fire and steam, and smoke, and red 
light ; a hiss ; a crash, a bell, and a shriek ; Louisa put 
into one carriage, Mrs. Sparsit put into another : the 
little station a desert speck in the thunder-storm. 

Though her teeth chattered in her head from wet and 
cold, Mrs. Sparsit exulted hugely. The figure had 
plunged down the precipice, and she felt herself, as it 
were, attending on the body. Could she, who had been 
so active in the getting up of the funeral triumph, do less 
than exult ? “ She will be at Coketown long before him,” 
thought Mrs. Sparsit, “ though his horse is never so good. 
Where will she wait for him ? And where will they go 
together ? Patience. We shall see.” 

The tremendous rain occasioned infinite confusion, when 
the train stopped at its destination. Gutters and pipes 
had burst, drains had overflowed, and streets were under 
water. In the first instant of alighting, Mrs. Sparsit 
turned her distracted eyes towards the waiting coaches, 
which were in great request. “ She will get into one,” 
she considered, “ and will be away before I can follow ir 
another. At all risks of being run over, I must see the 
number, and hear the order given to the coachman.” 

But, Mrs. Sparsit was wrong in her calculation. Louisa 
got into no coach, and was already gone. The black 
eyes kept upon the railroad-carriage in which she had 
travelled, settled upon it a moment too late. The dooi 
not being opened after several minutes, Mrs. Sparsit 
passed it and repassed it, saw nothing, looked in, and 
found it empty. Wet through and through : with her 
feet squelching and squashing in her shoes whenever she 
moved ; with a rash of rain upon her classical visage ; 


HARD TIMES. 


281 


with a bonnet like an over-ripe fig ; with all her clothes 
spoiled ; with damp impressions of every button, string, 
and hook-and-eye she wore, printed off upon her highly 
connected back ; with a stagnant verdure on her general 
exterior, such as accumulates on an old park-fence in a 
mouldy lane ; Mrs. Sparsit had no resource but to burs 
nto tears of bitterness and say, “ I have lost her ! ” 


282 


HARD TIMES. 


CHAPTER XH. 

DOWN. 

The national dustmen, after entertaining one another 
with a great many noisy little fights among themselves, 
had dispersed for the present, and Mr. Gradgrind was at 
home for the vacation. 

He sat writing in the room with the deadly statistical 
clock, proving something no doubt — probably, in the 
main, that the Good Samaritan was a Bad Economist. 
The noise of the rain did not disturb him much ; but it 
attracted his attention sufficiently to make him raise his 
head sometimes, as if he were rather remonstrating with 
the elements. When it thundered very loudly, he glanced 
towards Coketown, having it in his mind that some of the 
tall chimneys might be struck by lightning. 

The thunder was rolling into distance, and the rain 
was pouring down like a deluge, when the door of his 
room opened. He looked round the lamp upon his table, 
and saw, with amazement, his eldest daughter. 

“ Louisa ! ” 

“ Father, I want to speak to you.” 

“ What is the matter ? How strange you look ! And 
good Heaven,” said Mr. Gradgrind, wondering more and 
more, “ have you come here exposed to this storm ? ” 

She put her hands to her dress, as if she hardly 
knew. “ Yes.” Then she uncovered her head, and let* 


HARD TIMES. 


283 


ting her cloak and hood fall where they might, %tood 
looking at him : so colorless, so dishevelled, so defiant 
and despairing, that he was afraid of her. 

“ What is it ? I conjure you, Louisa, tell me what is 
the matter.” 

She dropped into a chair before him, and put her cold 
hand on his arm. 

“ Father, you have trained me from my cradle ? ” 

“ Yes, Louisa.” 

“ I curse the hour in which I was born to such a 
destiny.” 

He looked at her in doubt and dread, vacantly repeat- 
ing : “ Curse the hour ? Curse the hour ? ” 

“ How could you give me life, and take from me all 
the inappreciable things that raise it from the state of 
conscious death ? Where are the graces of my soul ? 
Where are the sentiments of my heart ? What have 
you done, O father, what have you done, with the garden 
that should have bloomed once, in this great wilderness 
here ! ” 

She struck herself with both her hands upon her 
bosom. 

“ If it had ever been here, its ashes alone would save 
me from the void in which my whole life sinks. I did 
not mean to say this ; but, father, you remember the last 
time we conversed in this room ? ” 

He had been so wholly unprepared for what he heard 
now, that it was with difficulty he answered, “ Yes, 
Louisa.” 

“ What has risen to my lips now, would have risen to 
my lips then, if you had given me a moment’s help. I 
ion’t reproach you, father. What you have never nur- 
tured in me, you have never nurtured in yourself ; but 


HARD TIMES. 


2b* 

0 ! if you had only done so long ago, or if you had only 
neglected me, what a much better and much happier 
creature I should have been this day ! ” 

On hearing this, after all his care, he bowed his head 
upon his hand, and groaned aloud. 

“ Father, if you had known, when we were last to 
gether here, what even I feared while I strove against it 
— as it has been my task from infancy to strive against 
every natural prompting that has arisen in my heart ; if 
you had known that there lingered in my breast, sensi- 
bilities, affections, weaknesses capable of being cherished 
into strength, defying all the calculations ever made by 
man, and no more known to his arithmetic than his Cre- 
ator is, — would you have given me to the husband whom 

1 am now sure that I hate ? ” 

He said, “ No. No, my poor child.” 

“ Would you have doomed me, at any time, to the frost 
and blight that have hardened and spoiled me ? Would 
you have robbed me — for no one’s enrichment — only 
for the greater desolation of this world — of the imma- 
terial part of my life, the spring and summer of my be- 
lief, my refuge from what is sordid and bad in the real 
things around me, my school in which I should have 
learned to be more humble and more trusting with 
them, and to hope in my little sphere to make them 
better ? ” 

“ O no, no. No, Louisa.” 

“ Yet, father, if I had been stone-blind ; if I ha 
groped my way by my sense of touch, and had been free, 
while I knew the shapes and surfaces of things, to exer- 
cise my fancy somewhat, in regard to them ; I should 
have been a million times wiser, happier, more loving, 
more contented, more innocent and human in all good 


HARD TIMES. 


285 


respects, than I am with the eyes I have. Now, hear 
what I have come to say.” 

He moved, to support her with his arm. She rising 
as he did so, they stood close together : she, with a hand 
upon his shoulder, looking fixedly in his face. 

“ With a hunger and thirst upon me, father, which 
have never been for a moment appeased ; with an ardent 
impulse towards some region where rules, and figures, 
and definitions were not quite absolute ; I have grown 
up, battling every inch of my way.” 

“ I never knew you were unhappy, my child.” 

“ Father, I always knew it. In this strife I have almost 
repulsed and crushed my better angel into a demon. 
What I have learned has left me doubting, misbelieving, 
despising, regretting, what I have not learned ; and my 
dismal resource has been to think that life would soon go 
by, and that nothing in it could be worth the pain and 
trouble of a contest.” 

“ And you so young, Louisa ! ” he said with pity. 

“ And I so young. In this condition, father — for I 
show you now, without fear or favor, the ordinary dead- 
ened state of my mind as I know it — you proposed my 
husband to me. I took him. I never made a pretence 
to him or you that I loved him. I knew, and, father, 
you knew, and he knew, that I never did. I was not 
wholly indifferent, for I had a hope of being pleasant 
and useful to Tom. I made that wild escape into some- 
thing visionary, and have slowly found out how wild it 
was. But Tom had been the subject of all the little 
tenderness of my life ; perhaps he became so because I 
knew so well how to pity him. It matters little now 
except as it may dispose you to think more leniently of 
his errors.” 


286 


HARD TIMES. 


As her father held her in his arms, she put her othei 
hand upon his shoulder, and still looking fixedly in his 
face, went on. 

“ When I was irrevocably married, there rose up into 
rebellion against the tide, the old strife, made fiercer by 
all those causes of disparity which arise out of our two 
individual natures, and which no general laws shall ever 
rule or state for me, father, until they shall be able to 
direct the anatomist where to strike his knife into the 
secrets of my soul.” 

“ Louisa ! ” he said, and said imploringly ; for he well 
remembered what had passed between them in their 
former interview. 

“ I do not reproach you, father ; I make no complaint. 
I am here with another object.” 

“ What can I do, child ? Ask me what you will.” 

“ I am coming to it. Father, chance then threw into 
my way a new acquaintance ; a man such as I had had 
no experience of ; used to the world ; light, polished, 
easy ; making no pretences ; avowing the low estimate 
of everything, that I was half afraid to form in secret ; 
conveying to me almost immediately, though I don’t 
know how or by what degress, that he understood me, 
and read my thoughts. I could not find that lie was 
worse than I. There seemed to be a near affinity be- 
tween us. I only wondered it should be worth his 
while, who cared for nothing else, to care so much for 
me.” 

“ For you, Louisa ! ” 

Her father might instinctively have loosened his hold, 
but that he felt her strength departing from her, and 
saw a wild dilating fire in the eyes steadfastly regarding 

him. 


HARD TIMES. 


287 


“ I say nothing of his plea for claiming my confidence. 
It matters very little how he gained it. Father, he did 
gain it. What you know of the story of my marriage, 
he soon knew, just as well.” 

Her father’s face was ashy white, and he held her in 
both his arms. 

“ I have done no worse, I have not disgraced you. 
But if you ask me whether I have loved him, or do love 
him, I tell you plainly, father, that it may be so. I don’t 
know ! ” 

She took her hands suddenly from his shoulders and 
pressed them both upon her side ; while in her face, not 
like itself — and in her figure, drawn up, resolute to finish 
by a last effort what she had to say — the feelings long 
suppressed broke loose. 

“ This night, my husband being away, he has been 
with me, declaring himself my lover. This minute he 
expects me, for I could release myself of his presence by 
no other means. I do not know that I am sorry, I do 
not know that I am ashamed, I do not know that I am 
degraded in my own esteem. All that I know is, your 
philosophy and your teaching will not save me. Now, 
father, you have brought me to this. Save me by some 
other means ! ” 

He tightened his hold in time to prevent her sinking 
on the floor, but she cried out in a terrible voice, “ I 
shall die if you hold me ! Let me fall upon the 
ground ! ” And he laid her down there, and saw the 
pride of his heart and the triumph of his system, lying, 
an insensible heap, at his feet. 


END OF THE SECOND BOOK. 


288 


HARD TIMES. 


BOOK THE THIRD. 

GARNERING. 

— ♦ — 

CHAPTER I. 

ANOTHER THING NEEDFUL. 

Louisa awoke from a torpor, and her eyes languidly 
opened on her old bed at home, and her old room. It 
seemed, at first, as if all that had happened since the 
days when these objects were familiar to her were the 
shadows of a dream ; but gradually, as the objects be- 
came more real to her sight, the events became more real 
to her mind. 

She could scarcely move her head for pain and heavi- 
ness, her eyes were strained and sore, and she was very 
weak. A curious passive inattention had such possession 
of her, that the presence of her little sister in the room 
did not attract her notice for some time. Even when 
their eyes had met, and her sister had approached the 
bed, Louisa lay for minutes looking at her in silence, and 
suffering her timidly to hold her passive hand, before she 
asked : 

“ Wlam was I brought to this room ? ” 

“ Last night, Louisa.” 

“ Who brought me here ? ” 


HARD TIMES. 


289 


* Sissy, I believe.” 

66 Why do you believe so ? ” 

“ Because I found her here this morning. She didn’t 
come to my bedside to wake me, as she always does ; and 
I went to look for her. She was not in her own room 
either ; and I went looking for her all over the house, 
until I found her here, taking care of you and cooling 
your head. Will you see father? Sissy said I was to 
tell him when you woke.” 

“ What a beaming face you have, Jane ! ” said Louisa, 
as her young sister — timidly still — bent down to kiss 
her. 

“ Have I ? I am very glad you think so. I am sure 
it must be Sissy’s doing.” 

The arm Louisa had begun to twine about her neck, 
unbent itself. “ You can tell father, if you will.” Then, 
staying her a moment, she said, “ It was you who made 
my room so cheerful, and gave it this look of wel- 
come ? ” 

“ Oh no, Louisa, it was done before I came. It 
was ” — 

Louisa turned upon her pillow, and heard no more. 
When her sister had withdrawn, she turned her head 
back again, and lay with her face towards the door, until 
it opened and her father entered. 

He had a jaded, anxious look upon him, and his hand, 
usually steady, trembled in hers. He sat down at the 
side of the bed, tenderly asking how she was, and dwell- 
ing on the necessity of her keeping very quiet after her 
agitation and exposure to the weather last night. He 
spoke in a subdued and troubled voice, very different 
from his usual dictatorial manner ; and was often at a 
loss for words. 


VOL. I. 


19 


290 


HARD TIMES. 


“ My dear Louisa. My poor daughter.” He was so 
much at a loss at that place, that he stopped altogether. 
He tried again. 

“ My unfortunate child.” The place was so difficult 
to get over, that he tried again. 

“ It would be hopeless for me, Louisa, to endeavor to 
tell you how overwhelmed I have been, and still am, by 
what broke upon me last night. The ground on which 
I stand has ceased to be solid under my feet. The only 
support on which I leaned, and the strength of which it 
seemed and still does seem, impossible to question, has 
given way in an instant. Iam stunned by these dis- 
coveries. I have no selfish meaning in what I say ; but 
I find the shock of what broke upon me last night, to be 
very heavy indeed.” 

She could give him no comfort herein. She had suf- 
fered the wreck of her whole life upon the rock. 

“ I will not say, Louisa, that if you had by any 
happy chance undeceived me some time ago, it would 
have been better for us both ; better for your peace, 
and better for mine. For I am sensible that it may 
not have been a part of my system to invite any confi- 
dence of that kind. I have proved my — my system to 
myself, and I have rigidly administered it ; and I must 
bear the responsibility of its failures. I only entreat 
you to believe, my favorite child, that I have meant to 
do right.” 

He said it earnestly, and to do him justice he had. In 
gauging fathomless deeps with his little mean excise-rod, 
and in staggering over the universe with his rusty stiff- 
legged compasses, he had meant to do great things. 
Within the limits of his short tether he had tumbled 
about, annihilating the flowers of existence with greater 


HARD TIMES. 


291 


singleness of purpose than many of the blatant person- 
ages whose company he kept. 

“ I am well assured of what you say, father. I know 
I have been your favorite child. I know you have in- 
tended to make me happy. I have never blamed you, 
and I never shall.” 

He took her outstretched hand, and retained it in his. 

“ My dear, I have remained all night at my table, pon- 
dering again and again on what has so painfully passed 
between us. When I consider your character ; when I con- 
sider that what has been known to me for hours, has been 
concealed by you for years ; when I consider under what 
immediate pressure it has been forced from you at last ; 
I come to the conclusion that I cannot but mistrust 
myself.” 

He might have added more than all, when he saw the 
face now looking at him. He did add it in effect, per- 
haps, as he softly moved her scattered hair from her fore- 
head with his hand. Such little actions, slight in anothei 
man, were very noticeable in him ; and his daughter re 
ceived them as if they had been words of contrition. 

“ But,” said Mr. Gradgrind, slowly, and with hesita- 
tion, as well as with a w r retched sense of helplessness, 
u if I see reason to mistrust myself for the past, Louisa, 
I should also mistrust myself for the present and the 
future. To speak unreservedly to you, I do. I am far 
from feeling convinced now, however differently I might 
have felt only this time yesterday, that I am fit for the 
trust you repose in me ; that I know how to respond to 
the appeal you have come home to make tc me ; that I 
have the right instinct — supposing it for the moment to 
be some quality of that nature — how to help you, and 
f o set you right, my child.” 


f 


292 HARD TIMES. 

She had turned upon her pillow, and lay with her face 
upon her arm, so that he could not see it. All her wild- 
ness and passion had subsided ; but, though softened, she 
was not in tears. Her father was changed in nothing so 
much as in the respect that he would have been glad to 
see her in tears. 

“ Some persons hold,” he pursued, still hesitating, “ that 
there is a wisdom of the Head, and that there is a wis- 
dom of the Heart. I have not supposed so ; but, as I 
have said, I mistrust myself now. I have supposed the 
* Head to be all-sufficient. It may not be all-sufficient ; 
how can I venture this morning to say it is ! If that 
other kind of wisdom should be what I have neglected, 
and should be the instinct that is wanted, Louisa ” — 

He suggested it very doubtfully, as if he were half 
unwilling to admit it even now. She made him no an- 
swer ; lying before him on her bed, still half dressed, 
much as he had seen her lying on the floor of his room 
last night. 

“ Louisa,” and his hand rested on her hair again, “ I 
have been absent from here, my dear, a good deal of 
late ; and though your sister’s training has been pursued 
according to — the system,” he appeared to come to that 
word with great reluctance always, “ it has necessarily 
been modified by daily associations begun, in her case, at 
an early age. I ask you — ignorantly and humbly, my 
daughter — for the better, do you think ? ” 

“Father,” she replied, without stirring, “if any har- 
mony has been awakened in her young breast that was 
mute in mine until it turned to discord, let her thank 
Heaven for it, and go upon her happier way, taking it as 
her greatest blessing that she has avoided my way.” 

“ O my child, my child ! ” he said, in a forlorn manner, 


HARD TIMES. 


293 


I am an unhappy man to see you thus ! What avails 
it to me that you do not reproach me, if I so bitterly re- 
proach myself ! ” He bent his head, and spoke low to 
her. “ Louisa, I have a misgiving that some change may 
have been slowly working about me in this house, by 
mere love and gratitude ; that what the Head had left 
undone and could not do, the Heart may have been doing 
silently. Can it be so ? ” 

She made him no reply. 

“ I am not too proud to believe it, Louisa. How could 
I be arrogant, and you before me ! Can it be so ? Is it 
so, my dear ? ” 

He looked upon her, once more, lying cast away there ; 
and without another word went out of the room. He 
had not been long gone, when she heard a light tread 
near the door, and knew that some one stood beside her. 

She did not raise her head. A dull anger that she 
should be seen in her distress, and that the involuntary 
look she had so resented should come to this fulfilment, 
smouldered within her like an unwholesome fire. All 
closely imprisoned forces rend and destroy. The air 
that would be healthful to the earth, the water that 
would enrich it, the heat that would ripen it, tear it 
when caged up. So in her bosom even now ; the 
strongest qualities she possessed, long turned upon them- 
selves, became a heap of obduracy, that rose against a 
friend. 

It was well that soft touch came upon her neck, and 
that she understood herself to be supposed to have fallen 
asleep. The sympathetic hand did not claim her resent- 
ment. Let it lie there, let it lie. 

It lay there, warming into life a crowd of gentler 
thoughts ; and she rested. As she softened with the 


294 


HARD TIMES. 


quiet, and the consciousness of being so watched, some 
tears made their way into her eyes. The face touched 
hers, and she knew that there were tears upon it too, and 
she the cause of them. 

As Louisa feigned to rouse herself, and sat up, Sissy 
retired, so that she stood placidly near the bedside. 

“ I hope I have not disturbed you. I have come to 
ask if you would let me stay with you.” 

“ Why should you stay with me ? My sister will miss 
you. You are everything to her.” 

“ Am I ? ” returned Sissy, shaking her head. “ I 
would be something to you, if I might.” 

“ What ? ” said Louisa, almost sternly. 

“ Whatever you want most, if I could be that. At all 
events, I would like to try to be as near it as I can. And 
however far off that may be, I will never tire of trying. 
Will you let me ? ” 

“ My father sent you to ask me.” 

“ No indeed,” replied Sissy. “ He told me that I 
might come in now, but he sent me away from the 
room this morning — or at least ” — She hesitated and 
stopped. 

“ At least, what ? ” said Louisa, with her searching 
eyes upon her. 

“ I thought it best myself that I should be sent away, 
for I felt very uncertain whether you would like to find 
me here.” 

“ Have I always hated you so much ? ” 

“ I hope not, for I have always loved you, and have 
always wished that you should know it. But you 
changed to me a little, shortly before you left home. 
Not that I wondered at it. You knew so much, and I 
knew so little, and it was so natural in many ways, going 


HARD TIMES. 


295 


as you were among other friends, that I had nothing to 
complain of, and was not at all hurt.” 

Her color rose as she said it modestly and hurriedly. 
Louisa understood the loving pretence, and her heart 
smote her. 

“ May I try ? ” said Sissy, emboldened to raise her 
hand to the neck that was insensibly drooping towards 
her. 

Louisa, taking down the hand that would have em- 
braced her in another moment, held it in one of hers, and 
answered, — 

“ First, Sissy, do you know what I am ? I am so 
proud and so hardened, so confused and troubled, so 
resentful and unjust to every one and to myself, that 
everything is stormy, dark, and wicked to me. Does 
not that repel you ? ” 

“ No ! ” 

“ I am so unhappy, and all that should have made me 
otherwise is so laid waste, that if I had been bereft of 
sense to this hour, and instead of being as learned as you 
think me, had to begin to acquire the simplest truths, I 
could not want a guide to peace, contentment, honor, all 
the good of which I am quite devoid, more abjectly than 
I do. Does not that repel you ? ” 

“ No ! ” 

In the innocence of her brave affection, and the brim- 
ming up of her old devoted spirit, the once deserted girl 
shone like a beautiful light upon the darkness of the 
other. 

Louisa raised the hand that it might clasp her neck 
and join its fellow there. She fell upon her knees, and 
clinging to this stroller’s child, looked up at her almost 
vitli veneration. 


296 


V 


HARD TIMES. 


“ Forgive me, pity me, help me ! Have compassion on 
my great need, and let me lay this head of mine upon a 
loving heart ! ” 

“ 0 lay it here ! ” cried Sissy. “ Lay it here, my 
dear.” 




\ 


HARD TIMES. 


297 


CHAPTER II. 

VERY RIDICULOUS. 

Mr. James Harthouse passed a whole night and a 
day in a state of so much hurry, that the World, with 
its best glass in its eye, would scarcely have recognized 
him during that insane interval, as the brother Jem of 
the honorable and jocular member. He was positively 
agitated. He several times spoke with an emphasis, 
similar to the vulgar manner. He went in and went 
out in an unaccountable way, like a man without an ob- 
ject. He rode like a highwayman. In a word, he was 
so horribly bored by existing circumstances, that he forgot 
to go in for boredom in the manner prescribed by the 
authorities. 

After putting his horse at Coketown through the storm, 
as if it were a leap, he waited up all night : from time 
to time ringing his bell with the greatest fury, charging 
the porter who kept watch with delinquency in withhold- 
ing letters or messages that could not fail to have been 
entrusted to him, and demanding restitution on the spot. 
The dawn coming, the morning coming, and the day 
coming, and neither message nor letter coming with 
either, he went down to the country-house. There, the 
report was, Mr. Bounderby away, and Mrs. Bounderby 
in town. Left for town suddenly last evening. Not 
even known to be gone until receipt of message, im- 


298 


HARD TIMES. 


porting that her return was not to be expected for the 
present. 

In these circumstances he had nothing for it but to 
follow her to town. He went to the house in town. 
Mrs. Bounderby not there. He looked in at the Bank. 
Mr. Bounderby away, and Mrs. Sparsit away. Mrs. 
Sparsit away ? Who could have been reduced to sudden 
extremity for the company of that griffin ! 

“ Well ! I don’t know,” said Tom, who had his own 
reasons for being uneasy about it. “ She was off some- 
where at daybreak this morning. She’s always full of 
mystery ; I hate her. So I do that white chap ; he’s 
always got his blinking eyes upon a fellow.” 

“ Where were you last night, Tom ? ” 

“ Where was I last night ! ” said Tom. “ Come ! I 
like that. I was waiting for you, Mr. Hartliouse, till it 
came down as I never saw it come down before. Where 
was I too ! Where were you, you mean.” 

“ I was prevented from coming — detained.” 

“ Detained ! ” murmured Tom. “ Two of us were 
detained. I was detained looking for you, till I lost 
every train but the mail. It would have been a pleasant 
job to go down by that on such a night, and have to 
walk home through a pond. I was obliged to sleep in 
town after all.” 
u Where ? ” 

“ Where ? Why, in my own bed at Bounderby’s.” 

“ Did you see your sister ? ” 

“ How the deuce,” returned Tom, staring, “ could I see 
my sister when she was fifteen miles off ? ” 

Cursing these quick retorts of the young gentleman 
to whom he was so true a friend, Mr. Hartliouse disem- 
barrassed himself of that interview with the smallest 


HARD TIMES. 


299 


conceivable amount of ceremony, and debated for the 
hundredth time what all this could mean ? He made 
only one thing clear. It was, that whether she was in 
town or out of town, whether he had been premature 
with her who was so hard to comprehend, or she had lost 
courage, or they were discovered, or some mischance or 
mistake, at present incomprehensible, had occurred, he 
must remain to confront his fortune, whatever it was. 
The hotel where he was known to live when condemned 
to that region of blackness, was the stake to which he 
was tied. As to all the rest — What will be, will be. 

“ So, whether I am waiting for a hostile message, or 
an assignation, or a penitent remonstrance, or an im- 
promptu wrestle with my friend Bounderby in the Lan- 
cashire manner — which would seem as likely as any- 
thing else in the present state of affairs — I’ll dine,” 
said Mr. James Harthouse. “ Bounderby has the 
advantage in point of weight ; and if anything of a 
British nature is to come off between us, it may be as 
well to be in training.” 

Therefore he rang the bell, and tossing himself negli- 
gently on a sofa, ordered “ Some dinner at six — with a 
beefsteak in it,” and got through the intervening time as 
well as he could. That was not particularly well ; for 
he remained in the greatest perplexity, and, as the hours 
went on, and no kind of explanation offered itself, his 
perplexity augmented at compound interest. 

However, he took affairs as coolly as it was in human 
uature to do, and entertained himself with the facetious 
idea of the training more than once. “ It wouldn’t be 
bad,” he yawned at one time, “ to give the waiter five 
shillings, and throw him.” At another time it occurred 
to him, “ Or a fellow of about thirteen or fourteen stone 


300 


HARD TIMES. 


might be hired by the hour.” But these jests did not 
tell materially on the afternoon, or his suspense ; and, 
sooth to say, they both lagged fearfully. 

It was impossible, even before dinner, to avoid often 
walking about in the pattern of the carpet, looking out 
of the window, listening at the door for footsteps, and 
occasionally becoming rather hot when any steps ap- 
proached that room. But, after dinner, when the day 
turned to twilight, and the twilight turned to night, and 
still no communication was made to him, it began to be 
as he expressed it, “ like the Holy Office and slow tor- 
ture.” However, still true to his conviction that indiffer- 
ence was the genuine high-breeding (the only conviction 
he had), he seized this crisis as the opportunity for order- 
ing candles and a newspaper. 

He had been trying in vain, for half an hour, to read 
this newspaper, when the waiter appeared and said, at 
once mysteriously and apologetically : 

“ Beg your pardon, sir. You’re wanted, sir, if you 
please.” 

A general recollection that this was the kind of thing 
the Police said to the swell mob, caused Mr. Harthouse 
to ask the waiter in return, with bristling indignation, 
what the Devil he meant by “ wanted ” ? 

“ Beg your pardon, sir. Young lady outside, sir, wishes 
to see you.” 

“ Outside ? Where ? ” 

“ Outside this door, sir.” 

Giving the waiter to the personage before mentioned, 
as a blockhead duly qualified for that consignment, Mr 
Harthouse hurried into the gallery. A young woman 
whom he had never seen stood^there. Plainly dressed, 
very quiet, very pretty. As he conducted her into the 


HARD TIMES. 


301 


room and placed a chair for her, he observed, by the 
light of the candles, that she was even prettier than he 
had at first believed. Her face was innocent and youth- 
ful, and its expression remarkably pleasant. She was 
not afraid of him, or in any way disconcerted ; she 
seemed to have her mind entirely preoccupied with 
the occasion of her visit, and to have substituted that 
consideration for herself. 

“ I speak to Mr. Harthouse ? ” she said, when they 
were alone. 

“ To Mr. Harthouse.” He added in his mind, “ And 
you speak to him with the most confiding eyes I ever 
saw, and the most earnest voice (though so quiet) I ever 
heard.” 

“ If I do not understand — and I do not, sir ” — said 
Sissy, “ what your honor as a gentleman binds you to, in 
other matters : ” the blood really rose in his face as she 
began in these words : “ I am sure I may rely upon it 
to keep my visit secret, and to keep secret what I am 
going to say. I will rely upon it, if you will tell me I 
may so far trust ” — 

“You may, I assure you.” 

“ I am young, as you see ; I am alone, as you see. In 
coming to you, sir, I have no advice or encouragement 
beyond my own hope.” 

He thought “ But that is very strong,” as he followed 
the momentary upward glance of her eyes. He thought 
besides, “ This is a very odd beginning. I don’t see 
where Ave are going.” 

“ I think,” said Sissy, “ you have already guessed whom 
I left just now ? ” 

u I have been in the greatest concern and uneasiness 
during the last four-and-tAventy hours (which have ap- 


302 


HARD TIMES. 


peared as many years)/’ he returned, “ on a lady’s ac- 
count. The hopes I have been encouraged to form tha\ 
you come from that lady, do not deceive me, I trust.” 

“ I left her within an hour.” 

“ At ? ” 

“ At her father’s.” 

Mr. Iiarthouse’s face lengthened in spite of his cool- 
ness, and his perplexity increased. “ Then I certainly/’ 
he thought, “ do not see where we are going.” 

“ She hurried there last night. She arrived there in 
great agitation, and was insensible all through the night. 
I live at her father’s, and was with her. You may be 
sure, sir, you will never see her again as long as you 
live.” 

Mr. Harthouse drew a long breath ; and, if ever man 
found himself in the position of not knowing what to 
say ; made the discovery beyond all question that he was 
so circumstanced. The child-like ingenuousness with 
which his visitor spoke, her modest fearfulness, her truth- 
fulness which put all artifice aside, her entire forgetful- 
ness of herself in her earnest quiet holding to the object 
with which she had come ; all this, together with her 
reliance on his easily given promise — which in itself 
shamed him — presented something in which he was so 
inexperienced, and against which he knew any of his 
usual weajDons would fall so powerless ; that not a word 
could he rally to his relief. 

At last he said : 

“ So startling an announcement, so confidently made, 
and by such lips, is really disconcerting in the last de- 
gree. May I be permitted to inquire, if you are charged 
to convey that information to me in those hopeless words, 
by the lady of whom we speak.” 


HARD TIMES, 


303 


“ I have no charge from her.* 

“ The drowning man catches at the straw. With no 
disrespect for your judgment, and with no doubt of your 
sincerity, excuse my saying that I cling to the belief that 
there is yet hope that I am not condemned to perpetual 
exile from that lady’s presence.” 

“ There is not the least hope. The first object of my 
coming here, sir, is to assure you that you must believe 
that there is no more hope of your ever speaking with 
her again, than there would be if she had died when she 
came home last night.” 

“Must believe? But if I can’t — or if I should, by 
infirmity of nature, be obstinate — and wont ” — 

“ It is still true. There is no hope.” 

James Harthouse looked at her with an incredulous 
smile upon his lips ; but her mind looked over and 
beyond him, and the smile was quite thrown away. 
He bit his lip, and took a little time for consideration. 
“ Well ! If it should unhappily appear,” he said, “after 
due pains and duty on my part, that I am brought to a 
position so desolate as this banishment, I shall not be- 
come the lady’s persecutor. But you said you had no 
commission from her ? ” 

“ I have only the commission of my love for her, and 
her love for me. I have no other trust, than that I have 
been with her since she came home, and that she has 
given me her confidence. I have no further trust, than 
that I know something of her character and her marriage. 
O Mr. Harthouse, I think you had that trust too ! ” 

He was touched in the cavity where his heart should 
have been — in that nest of addled eggs, where the birds 
of heaven would have lived if they had not been whistled 
away — by the fervor of this reproach. 


304 


HARD TIMES. 

“ I am not a moral sort of fellow,” he said, 66 and i 
never make any pretensions to the character of a moral 
sort of fellow. I am as immoral as need be. At the 
same time, in bringing any distress upon the lady who is 
the subject of the present conversation, or in unfortu- 
nately compromising her in any way, or in committing 
myself by any expression of sentiments towards her, not 
perfectly reconcilable with — in fact with — the domestic 
hearth ; or in taking any advantage of her father’s being 
a machine, or of her brother’s being a whelp, or of her 
husband’s being a bear ; I beg to be allowed to assure 
you that I have had no particularly evil intentions, but 
have glided on from one step to another with a smooth- 
ness so perfectly diabolical, that I had not the slightest 
idea the catalogue was half so long until I began to turn 
it over. Whereas 1 find,” said Mr. James Harthouse, in 
conclusion, “ that it is really in several volumes.” 

Though he said all this in his frivolous way, the way 
seemed, for that once, a conscious polishing of but an 
ugly surface. He was silent for a moment ; and then 
proceeded with a more self-possessed air, though with 
traces of vexation and disappointment that would not be 
polished out. 

“ After what has been just now represented to me, in 
a manner I find it impossible to doubt — I know of 
hardly any other source from which I could have ac- 
cepted it so readily — I feel bound to say to you, in 
whom the confidence you have mentioned has been 
reposed, that I cannot refuse to contemplate the possi- 
bility (however unexpected) of my seeing the lady no 
more. I am solely to blame for the thing having come 
to this — and — and, I cannot say,” he added, rather 
hard up for a general peroration, “ that I have any san- 


HARD TIMES. 


305 


guine expectation of ever becoming a moral sort of fel- 
low, or that I have any belief in any moral sort of fellow 
whatever.” 

Sissy’s face sufficiently showed that her appeal to him 
was not finished. 

“ You spoke,” he resumed, as she raised her eyes to 
him again, u of your first object. I may assume that 
there is a second to be mentioned ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Will you oblige me by confiding it ? ” 

“ Mr. Harthouse,” returned Sissy, with a blending of 
gentleness and steadiness that quite defeated him, and 
with a simple confidence in his being bound to do what 
she required, that held him at a singular disadvantage, 
“ the only reparation that remains with you, is to leave 
here immediately and finally. I am quite sure that you 
can mitigate in no other way the wrong and harm you 
have done. I am quite sure that it is the only compen- 
sation you have left it in your power to make. I do not 
say that it is much, or that it is enough ; but it is some- 
thing, and it is necessary. Therefore, though without 
any other authority than I have given you, and even 
without the knowledge of any other person than yourself 
and myself, I ask you to depart from this place to-night, 
under an obligation never to return to it.” 

If she had asserted any influence over him beyond her 
plain faith in the truth and right of what she said ; if she 
had concealed the least doubt or irresolution, or had har- 
bored for the best purpose any reserve or pretence ; if 
she had shown, or felt, the lightest trace of any sensi- 
tiveness to his ridicule or his astonishment, or any re- 
monstrance he might offer ; he would have carried it 

against her at this point. But he could as easily have 
vol. i. 20 


306 


HARD TIMES. 


\ 

changed a clear sky by looking at it in surprise, as affect 
her. 

“ Bu . do you know,” he asked, quite at a loss, “ the 
extent of what you ask ? You probably are not aware 
that I am here on a public kind of business, preposterous 
enough in itself, but which I have gone in for, and sworn 
by, and am supposed to be devoted to in quite a desperate 
manner? You probably are not aware of that, but I 
assure you it’s the fact.” 

It had no effect on Sissy, fact or no fact. 

“ Besides which,” said Mr. Harthouse, taking a turn 
or two across the room, dubiously, “ it’s so alarmingly 
absurd. It would make a man so ridiculous, after going 
in for these fellows, to back out in such an incomprehen- 
sible way.” 

“ I am quite sure,” repeated Sissy, “ that it is the only 
reparation in your power, sir. I am quite sure, or I 
would not have come here.” 

He glanced at her face, and walked about again. 
“ Upon my soul, I don’t know what to say. So im- 
mensely absurd ! ” 

It fell to his lot, now, to stipulate for secrecy. 

“ If I were to do such a very ridiculous thing,” he 
said, stopping again presently, and leaning against the 
chimney-piece, “ it could only be in the most inviolable 
confidence.” 

“ I will trust to you, sir,” returned Sissy, “ and you 
will trust to me.” 

His leaning against the chimney-piece reminded him 
of the night with the whelp. It was the self-same chim- 
ney-piece, and somehow he felt as if he were the whelp 
to-night. He could make no way at all. 

“ I suppose a man never was placed in a more ridicu- 


HARD TIMES. 


30 1 


ious position,” he said, after looking down, and looking 
up, and laughing, and frowning, and walking off, and 
walking back again. “ But I see no way out of it. What 
will be, will be. This will be, I suppose. I must take 
off myself, I imagine — in short, I engage to do it.” 

Sissy rose. She was not surprised by the result, but 
she was happy in it, and her face beamed brightly. 

" You will permit me to say,” continued Mr. James 
Harthouse, “that I doubt if any other ambassador, or 
ambassadress, could have addressed me with the same 
success. I must not only regard myself as being in a 
very ridiculous position, but as being vanquished at all 
points. Will you allow me the privilege of remembering 
my enemy’s name ? ” 

“ My name ? ” said the ambassadress. 

“ The only name I could possibly care to know, to- 
night.” 

“ Sissy Jupe.” 

“ Pardon my curiosity at parting. Belated to the 
family ? ” 

“ I am only a poor girl,” returned Sissy. “ I was sepa- 
rated from my father — he was only a stroller — and 
taken pity on by Mr. Gradgrind. I have lived in the 
house ever since.” 

She was gone. 

“ It wanted this to complete the defeat,” said Mr. 
James Harthouse, sinking, with a resigned air, on the 
sofa, after standing transfixed a little while. “ The 
defeat may now be considered perfectly accomplished. 
Only a poor girl — only a stroller — only James Hart- 
house made nothing of — only James Harthouse a Great 
Pyramid of failure.” 

The Great Pyramid put it into his head to go up the 


308 


HARD TIMES. 


Nile. He took a pen upon the instant, and wrote the 
following note (in appropriate hieroglyphics) to his 
brother : 

Dear Jack. All up at Coketown. Bored out of the place, and 
going ir. for camels. Affectionately, Jem. 

He rang the bell. 

“ Send my fellow here.” 

“ Gone to bed, sir.” 

“ Tell him to get up, and pack up.” 

He wrote two more notes. One, to Mr. Bounderby, 
announcing his retirement from that part of the country, 
and showing where he would be found for the next fort- 
night. The other, similar in effect, to Mr. Gradgrind. 
Almost as soon as the ink was dry upon their superscrip- 
tions, he had left the tall chimneys of Coketown behind, 
and was in a railway carriage, tearing and glaring over 
the dark landscape. 

The moral sort of fellows might suppose that Mr. 
James Harthouse derived some comfortable reflections 
afterwards, from this prompt retreat, as one of his few 
actions that made any amends for anything, and as a 
token to himself that he had escaped the climax of a 
very bad business. But it was not so, at all. A secret 
sense of having failed and been ridiculous — a dread of 
what other fellows who went in for similar sorts jf things, 
would say at his expense if they knew it — so oppressed 
him, that what was about the very best passage in his 
life was the one of all others he would not have owned 
to on any account, and the only one that made him 
ashamed of himself. 


HARD TIMES. 


309 


CHAPTER III. 

VERY DECIDED. 

The indefatigable Mrs. Sparsit, with a violent cold 
upon her, her voice reduced to a whisper, and her stately 
frame so racked by continual sneezes that it seemed in 
danger of dismemberment, gave chase to her patron un- 
til she found him in the metropolis ; and there, majesti- 
cally sweeping in upon him at his hotel in St. James’s 
Street, exploded the combustibles with which she was 
charged, and blew up. Having executed her mission 
with infinite relish, this high-minded woman then fainted 
away on Mr. Bounderby’s coat-collar. 

Mr. Bounderby’s first procedure was to shake Mrs. 
Sparsit off, and leave her to progress as she might 
through various stages of suffering on the floor. He 
next had recourse to the administration of potent resto- 
ratives, such as screwing the patient’s thumbs, smiting 
her hands, abundantly watering her face, and inserting 
salt in her mouth. "When these attentions had re- 
covered her (which they speedily did), he hustled her 
into a fast train without offering any other refresh- 
ment, and carried her back to Coketown more dead 
than alive. 

Regarded as a classical ruin, Mrs. Sparsit was an in- 
teresting spectacle on her arrival at her journey’s end ; 


310 


V 


HARD TIMES. 


but considered in any other light, the amount of damage 
she had by that time sustained was excessive, ar.d im- 
paired her claims to admiration. Utterly heedless of the 
wear and tear of her clothes and constitution, and ada- 
mant to her pathetic sneezes, Mr. Bounderby imme- 
diately crammed her into a coach, and bore her off to 
Stone Lodge. 

“ Now, Tom Gradgrind,” said Bounderby, bursting into 
his father-in-law’s room late at night; “here’s a lady 
here — Mrs. Sparsit — you know Mrs. Sparsit — who 
has something to say to you that will strike you 
dumb.” 

“ You have missed my letter ! ” exclaimed Mr. Grad- 
grind, surprised by the apparition. 

“ Missed your letter, sir ! ” bawled Bounderby. “ The 
present time is no time for letters. No man shall talk 
to Josiah Bounderby of Coke town about letters, with his 
mind in the state it’s in now.” 

“ Bounderby,” said Mr. Gradgrind, in a tone of tem- 
perate remonstrance, “ I speak of a very special letter I 
have written to you, in reference to Louisa.” 

“ Tom Gradgrind,” replied Bounderby, knocking the 
flat of his hand several times with great vehemence on 
the table, “ I speak of a very special messenger that has 
come to me, in reference to Louisa. Mrs. Sparsit ma’am, 
stand forward ! ” 

That unfortunate lady hereupon essaying to offer testi- 
mony, without any voice and with painful gestures ex- 
pressive of an inflamed throat, became so aggravating 
and underwent so many facial contortions, that Mr. Boun- 
derby, unable to bear it, seized her by the arm and shook 
her. 

“If you can’t get it out, ma’am,” said Bounderby, 


i 


HARD TIMES. 


311 


u leave me to get it out. This is not a time for a lady, 
however highly connected, to be totally inaudible, and 
seemingly swallowing marbles. Tom Gradgrind, Mrs. 
Sparsit latterly found herself, by accident, in a situation 
to overhear a conversation out of doors between your 
daughter and your precious gentleman-friend, Mr. James 
Harthouse.” 

“ Indeed ! ” said Mr. Gradgrind. 

“ Ah ! Indeed ! ” cried Bounderby. “ And in that con- 
versation ” — 

“ It is not necessary to repeat its tenor, Bounderby. I 
know what passed.” 

“ You do ? Perhaps,” said Bounderby, starting with 
all his might at his so quiet and assuasive father-in- 
law, “ you know where your daughter is at the present 
time ? ” 

“ Undoubtedly. She is here.” 

“ Here ? ” 

“ My dear Bounderby, let me beg you to restrain these 
loud outbreaks, on all accounts. Louisa is here. The 
moment she could detach herself from that interview 
with the person of whom you speak, and whom I deeply 
regret to have been the means of introducing to you, 
Louisa hurried here, for protection. I myself had not 
been at home many hours, when I received her — here, 
in this room. She hurried by the train to town, she ran 
from town to this house through a raging storm, and pre- 
sented herself before me in a state of distraction. Of 
course, she has remained here ever since. Let me 
entreat you, for your own sake and for hers, to be more 
quiet.” 

Mr. Bounderby silently gazed about him for some mo- 
ments, in every direction except Mrs. Sparsit’s direction ; 


312 


HARD TIMES. 


and then, abruptly turning upon the niece of Lady Scad- 
gers, said to that wretched woman : 

“ Now, ma’am ! We shall be happy to hear any little 
apology you may think proper to offer, for going about 
the country at express pace, with no other luggage than 
a Cock-and-a-Bull, ma’am ! ” 

“ Sir,” whispered Mrs. Sparsit, “ my nerves are at 
present too much shaken, and my health is at present too 
much impaired, in your service, to admit of my doing 
more than taking refuge in tears.” 

(Which she did.) 

“ Well, ma’am,” said Bounderby, u without making any 
observation to you that may not be made with propriety 
to a woman of good family, what I have got to add to 
that, is that there is something else in which it appears 
to me you may take refuge, namely, a coach. And the 
coach in which we came here, being at the door, you'll 
allow me to hand you down to it, and pack you home to 
the Bank : where the best course for you to pursue, will 
be to put your feet into the hottest water you can bear, 
and take a glass of scalding rum and butter after you get 
into bed.” With these words, Mr. Bounderby extended 
his right hand to the weeping lady and escorted her to 
the conveyance in question, shedding many plaintive 
sneezes by the way. He soon returned alone. 

“ Now, as you showed me in your face, Tom Grad- 
grind, that you wanted to speak to me,” he resumed, 
“ here I am. But, I am not in a very agreeable state, I 
tell you plainly ; not relishing this business, even as it is, 
and not considering that I am at any time as dutifully 
and submissively treated by your daughter, as Josiah 
Bounderby of Coketown ought to be treated by his wife. 
You have your opinion, I dare say ; and I have mine, I 


HARD TIMES. 


313 


know. If you mean to say anything to me to-night, that 
goes against this candid remark, you had better let it 
alone.” 

Mr. Gradgrind, it will be observed, being much soft- 
ened, Mr. Bounderby took particular pains to harden him- 
self at all points. It was his amiable nature. 

“My dear Bounderby,” Mr. Gradgrind began in 
reply. 

“ Now, you’ll excuse me,” said Bounderby, “ but I 
don’t want to be too dear. That, to start with. When I 
begin to be dear to a man, I generally find that his inten- 
tion is to come over me. I am not speaking to you po- 
litely ; but, as you are aware, I am not polite. If you 
like politeness, you know where to get it. You have 
youi‘ gentleman-friends you know, and they’ll serve you 
with as much of the article as you want. I don’t keep 
it myself.” 

“ Bounderby,” urged Mr. Gradgrind, “ we are all liable 
to mistakes ” — 

“ I thought you couldn’t make ’em,” interrupted Boun- 
derby. 

“ Perhaps I thought so. But, I say we are all liable 
to mistakes ; and I should feel sensible of your deli- 
cacy, and grateful for it, if you would spare me these 
references to Harthouse. I shall not associate him 
in our conversation with your intimacy and encour- 
agement ; pray do not persist in connecting him with 
mine.” 

“ I never mentioned his name ! ” said Bounderby. 

u Well, well ! ” returned Mr. Gradgrind, with a patient, 
even a submissive, air. And he sat for a little while pon- 
dering. “ Bounderby, I see reason to doubt whether we 
have ever quite understood Louisa.” 


314 


HARD TIMES. 


“ Who do you mean by We?” 

“ Let me say I, then,” he returned, in answer to the 
coarsely blurted question ; “ I doubt whether I have 
understood Louisa. I doubt whether I have been quite 
right in the manner of her education.” 

“ There you hit it,” returned Bounderby. “ There I 
agree with you. You have found it out at last, have 
you ? Education ! I’ll tell you what education is — 
To be tumbled out of doors, neck and crop, and put upon 
the shortest allowance of everything except blows. That’s 
what I call education.” 

“ I think your good sense will perceive,” Mr. Grad- 
grind remonstrated in all humility, “ that whatever the 
merits of such a system may be, it would be difficult of 
general application to girls.” 

“ I don’t see it at all, sir,” returned the obstinate 
Bounderby. 

“ Well,” sighed Mr. Gradgrind, “we will not enter 
into the question. I assure you I have no desire to be 
controversial. I seek to repair what is amiss, if I pos- 
sibly can ; and I hope you will assist me in. a good spirit, 
Bounderby, for I have been very much distressed.” 

“ I don’t understand you, yet,” said Bounderby, with 
determined obstinacy, “ and therefore I wont make any 
promises.” 

“ In the course of a few hours, my dear Bounderby,” 
Mr. Gradgrind proceeded, in the same depressed and 
propitiatory manner, “ I appear to myself to have be- 
come better informed as to Louisa’s character, than in 
previous years. The enlightenment has been painfully 
forced upon me, and the discovery is not mine. I think 
there are — Bounderby, you will be surprised to hear me 
say this — I think there are qualities in Louisa, which 


— which nave oeen narsmy neglected, ana — ana a little 
perverted. And — and I would suggest to you, that — 
that if you would kindly meet me in a timely endeavor 
to leave her to her better nature for a while — and to 
encourage it to develop itself by tenderness and con- 
sideration — it — it would be the better for the happi- 
ness of all of us. Louisa,” said Mr. Gradgrind, shading 
his face with his hand, “has always been my favorite 
child.” 

The blustrous Bounderby crimsoned and swelled to 
such an extent on hearing these words, that he seemed 
to be, and probably was, on the brink of a fit. With his 
very ears a bright purple shot with crimson, he pent up 
his indignation, however, and said : 

“ You’d like to keep her here for a time ? ” 

“I — I had intended to recommend, my dear Boun- 
derby, that you should allow Louisa to remain here 
on a visit, and be attended by Sissy (I mean of course 
Celilia Jupe), who understands her, and in whom she 
trusts.” 

“ I gather from all this, Tom Gradgrind,” said Boun- 
derby, standing up with his hands in his pockets, 
“ that you are of opinion that there’s what people call 
some incompatibility between Loo Bounderby and my- 
self.” 

“ I fear there is at present a general incompatibility 
between Louisa, and — and — and almost all the rela- 
tions in which I have placed her,” was her father’s sor- 
rowful reply. 

“ Now, look you here, Tom Gradgrind,” said Bounderby 
the flushed, confronting him with his legs wide apart, his 
hands deeper in his pockets, and his hair like a hayfield 
wherein his windy anger was boisterous. “You have 


said your say ; 1 am going to say mine. I am a Coke- 
town man. I am Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. 1 
know the bricks of this town, and I know the works of 
this town, and I know the chimneys of this town, and I 
know the smoke of this town, and I know the Hands of 
this town. I know ’em all pretty well. They’re real. 
When a man tells me anything about imaginative quali- 
ties, I always tell that man, whoever he is, that I know 
what he means. He means turtle-soup and venison, with 
a gold spoon, and that he wants to be set up with a coach 
and six. That’s what your daughter wants. Since you 
are of opinion that she ought to have what she wants, I 
recommend you to provide it for her. Because, Tom 
Gradgrind, she will never have it from me.” 

“ Bounderby,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “ I hoped, after my 
entreaty, you would have taken a different tone.” 

“ Just wait a bit,” retorted Bounderby. “ You have said 
your say, I believe. I heard you out ; hear me out, if 
you please. Don’t make yourself a spectacle of unfair- 
ness as well as inconsistency, because, although I am 
sorry to see Tom Gradgrind reduced to his present posi- 
tion, I should be doubly sorry to see him brought so low 
as that. Now, there’s an incompatibility of some sort or 
another, I am given to understand by you, between your 
daughter and me. I’ll give you to understand in reply 
to that, that there unquestionably is an incompatibility 
of the first magnitude — to be summed up in this — tha 
your daughter don’t properly know her husband’s merits, 
and is not impressed with such a sense as would become 
her, by George ! of the honor of his alliance. That’s 
plain speaking, I hope.” 

“ Bounderby,” urged Mr. Gradgrind, “ this is unrea- 
sonable.” 


\ 


HARD TIMES. 


317 


“ Is it ? ” said Bounderby. “ I am glad to hear you say 
so. Because when Tom Gradgrind with his new lights, 
tells me that what I say is unreasonable, I am convinced 
at once it must be devilish sensible. With your permis- 
sion I am going on. You know my origin ; and you 
know that for a good many years of my life I didn’t want 
a shoeing-horn, in consequence of not having a shoe. 
Yet you may believe or not, as you think proper, that 
there are ladies — born ladies — belonging to families — 
Families ! — who next to worship the ground I walk 
on.” 

He discharged this like a Rocket, at his father-in-law’s 
head. 

“ Whereas your daughter,” proceeded Bounderby, “ is 
far from being a born lady. That you know, yourself. 
Not that I care a pinch of candle-snuff about such things, 
for you are very well aware I don’t ; but that such is the 
fact, and you, Tom Gradgrind, can’t change it. Why do 
I say this ? ” 

“ Not, I fear,” observed Mr. Gradgrind, in a low voice, . 
“ to spare me.” 

u Hear me out,” said Bounderby, “ and refrain from 
cutting in till your turn comes round. I say this, because 
highly connected females have been astonished to see the 
way in which your daughter has conducted herself, and 
to witness her insensibility. They have wondered how I 
have suffered it. And I wonder myself now, and I won’t 
suffer it.” 

u Bounderby,” returned Mr. Gradgrind, rising, “ the less 
we say to-night the better, I think.” 

“ On the contrary, Tom Gradgrind, the more we say 
to-night, the better, I think. That is,” the consider- 
ation checked him, “ till I have said all I mean to say, 


318 


HARD TIMES. 

and then I don’t care how soon we stop. I come to a 
question that may shorten the business. What do you 
mean by the proposal you made just now?” 

“ What do I mean, Bounderby ? ” 

“ By your visiting proposition,” said Bounderby, with 
an inflexible jerk of the hayfield. 

“ I mean that I hope you may be induced to arrange 
in a friendly manner, for allowing Louisa a period of re- 
pose and reflection here, which may tend to a gradual al- 
teration for the better in many respects.” 

“ To a softening down of your ideas of the incompati- 
bility ? ” said Bounderby. 

“ If you put it in those terms.” 

“ What made you think of this ? ” said Bounderby. 

“ I have already said, I fear Louisa has not been un- 
derstood. Is it asking too much, Bounderby, that you, so 
far her elder, should aid in trying to set her right ? You 
have accepted a great charge of her ; for better for worse, 
for ” — 

Mr. Bounderby may have been annoyed by the repe- 
tition of his own words to Stephen Blackpool, but he cut 
the quotation short with an angry start. 

“ Come ! ” said he, “ I don’t want to be told about that. 
I know what I took her for, as well as you do. Never 
you mind what I took her for ; that’s my look out.” 

66 I was merely going on to remark, Bounderby, that 
we may all be more or less in the wrong, not even ex- 
cepting you ; and that some yielding on your part, remem- 
bering the trust you have accepted, may not only be an 
act of true kindness, but perhaps a debt incurred towards 
Louisa.” 

“ I think differently,” blustered Bounderby. 66 1 am 
going to finish this business according to my own opin- 


HARD TIMES. 


31S 


ions. Now, I don’t want to make a quarrel of it with 
you, Tom Gradgrind. To tell you the truth, I don’t 
think it would be worthy of my reputation to quarrel on 
such a subject. As to your gentleman-friend, he may 
take himself off, wherever he likes best. If he falls in 
my way, I shall tell him my mind ; if he don’t fall in 
my way, I shan’t, for it won’t be worth my while to do it. 
As to your daughter, whom I made Loo Bounderby, and 
might have done better by leaving Loo Gradgrind, if 
she don’t come home to-morrow, by twelve o’clock at 
noon, I shall understand that she prefers to stay away, 
and I shall send her wearing apparel and so forth over 
here, and you’ll take charge of her for the future. What 
I shall say to people in general, of the incompatibility 
that led to my so laying down the law, will be this. I 
am Josiah Bounderby, and I had my bringing-up ; she’s 
the daughter of Tom Gradgrind, and she had her bring- 
ing-up ; and the two horses wouldn’t pull together. I am 
pretty well known to be rather an uncommon man, I be- 
lieve ; and most people will understand fast enough that 
it must be a woman rather out of the common, also, who, 
in the long run, would come up to my mark.” 

“ Let me seriously entreat you to reconsider this, 
Bounderby,” urged Mr. Gradgrind, “ before you commit 
yourself to such a decision.” 

“ I always come to a decision,” said Bounderby, toss- 
ing his hat on : “ and whatever I do, I do at once. I 
should be surprised at Tom Gradgrind’s addressing such 
a remark to Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, knowing 
what he knows of him, if I could be surprised by any- 
thing Tom Gradgrind did, after his making himself a 
party to sentimental humbug. I have given you my 
decision, and I have got no more to say. Good-night 1 ” 


320 


HARD TIMES. 


So Mr. Bounderby went home to his town house to 
bed. At five minutes past twelve o’clock next day, he 
directed Mrs. Bounderby’s property to be carefully 
packed up and sent to Tom Gradgrind’s ; advertised 
his country retreat for sale by private contract; and 
•esumed a bachelor life. 


HARD TIMES. 


321 


CHAPTER IV. 

LOST. 

The robbery at the Bank had not languished before, 
and did not cease to occupy a front place in the attention 
of the principal of that establishment now. In boastful 
proof of his promptitude and activity, as a remarkable 
man, and a self-made man, and a commercial wonder more 
admirable than Venus, who had risen out of the mud in- 
stead of the sea, he liked to show how little his domestic 
affairs abated his business ardor. Consequently, in the 
first few weeks of his resumed bachelorhood, he even ad- 
vanced upon his usual display of bustle, and every day 
made such a rout in renewing his investigations into the 
robbery, that the officers who had it in hand almost 
wished it had never been committed. 

They were at fault too, and off the scent. Although 
they had been so quiet since the first outbreak of the 
matter, that most people really did suppose it to have 
been abandoned as hopeless, nothing new occurred. No 
implicated man or woman took untimely courage, 01 
made s self-betraying step. More remarkable yet, Ste 
phen Blackpool could not be heard of, and the mysterious 
old woman remained a mystery. 

Things having come to this pass, and showing no latent 
signs of stirring beyond it, the upshot of Mr. Bounderby’s 
investigations was, that he resolved to hazard a bold 

21 


VOL. I. 


322 


HARD TIMES. 


burst. He drew up a placard, offering Twenty Pounds 
reward for the apprehension of Stephen Blackpool, sus- 
pected of complicity in the robbery of the Coketown 
Bank on such a night; he described the said Stephen 
Blackpool by dress, complexion, estimated height, and 
manner, as minutely as he could ; he recited how he had 
left the town, and in what direction he had been last seen 
going ; he had the whole printed in great black letters on 
a staring broadsheet ; and he caused the walls to be posted 
with it in the dead of night, so that it should strike upon 
the sight of the whole population at one blow. 

The factory-bells had need to ring their loudest that 
morning to disperse the groups of workers who stood in 
the tardy daybreak, collected round the placards, devour- 
ing them with eager eyes. Not the least eager of the 
eyes assembled, were the eyes of those who could not 
read. These people, as they listened to the friendly voice 
that read aloud — there was always some such ready to 
help them — stared at the characters which meant so 
much with a vague awe and respect that would have 
been half ludicrous, if any aspect of public ignorance 
could ever be otherwise than threatening and full of evil. 
Many ears and eyes were busy with a vision of the mat- 
ter of these placards, among turning spindles, rattling 
looms, and whirring wheels, for hours afterwards ; and 
when the Hands cleared out again into the streets, there 
were still as many readers as before. 

Slackbridge, the delegate, had to address his audience 
too that night ; and Slackbridge had obtained a clean bill 
from the printer, and had brought it in his pocket. Oh 
my friends and fellow-countrymen, the down-trodden 
operatives of Coketown, oh my fellow-brothers and fel- 
low-workmen and fellow-citizens and fellow-men, what 


HARD TIMES. 


323 


a to-do was there, when Slackbridge unfolded what he 
called “ that damning document,” and held it up to the 
gaze, and for the execration, of the working-man commu- 
nity ! “ Oh my fellow-men, behold of what a traitor in 

the camp of those great spirits who are enrolled upon the 
holy scroll of Justice and of Union, is appropriately ca- 
pable ! Oh my prostrate friends, with the galling yoke 
of tyrants on your necks and the iron foot of despotism 
treading down your fallen forms into the dust of the 
earth, upon which right glad would your oppressors be 
to see you creeping on your bellies all the days of your 
lives, like the serpent in the garden — oh my brothers, 
and shall I as a man not add, my sisters too, what do you 
say, now , of Stephen Blackpool, with a slight stoop in 
his shoulders and about five foot seven in height, as set 
forth in this degrading and disgusting document, this 
blighting bill, this pernicious placard, this abominable 
advertisement ; and with what majesty of denouncement 
will you crush the viper, who would bring this stain and 
shame upon the Godlike race that happily has cast him 
out forever ! Yes, my compatriots, happily cast him out 
and sent him forth! For you remember how he stood 
here before you on this platform ; you remember how, face 
to face and foot to foot, I pursued him through all his in- 
tricate windings ; you remember how he sneaked and 
slunk, and sidled, and splitted of straws, until, with not an 
inch of ground to which to cling, I hurled him out from 
amongst us : an object for the undying finger of scorn 
to point at, and for the avenging fire of every free and 
blinking mind to scorch and sear ! And now my friends 
- — my laboring friends, for I rejoice and triumph in that 
stigma — my friends whose hard but honest beds are 
made in toil, and whose scanty but independent pots are 


324 


HARD TIMES. 


boiled in hardship ; and, now I say, my friends, what ap- 
pellation has that dastard craven taken to himself, when, 
with the mask torn from his features, he stands before us 
in all his native deformity, a What ? A thief! A plun- 
derer ! A proscribed fugitive, with a price upon hi 
head ; a fester and a wound upon the noble character of 
the Coketown operative ! Therefore, my band of broth- 
ers in a sacred bond, to which your children and your 
children’s children yet unborn have set their infant hands 
and seals, I propose to you on the part of the United 
Aggregate Tribunal, ever watchful for your welfare, ever 
zealous for your benefit, that this meeting does Resolve : 
That Stephen Blackpool, weaver, referred to in this pla- 
card, having been already solemnly disowned by the com- 
munity of Coketown Hands, the same are free from the 
shame of his misdeeds, and cannot as a class be re- 
proached with his dishonest actions ! ” 

Thus Slackbridge ; gnashing and perspiring after a 
prodigious sort. A few stern voices called out u No ! ” 
and a score or two hailed, with assenting cries of “ Hear, 
hear ! ” the caution from one man, “ Slackbridge, y’or 
over hetter int ; y’or a-goen too fast ! ” But these were 
pigmies against an army ; the general assemblage sub- 
scribed to the gospel according to Slackbridge, and gave 
three cheers for him, as he sat demonstratively panting 
at them. 

These men and women were yet in the streets, passing 
quietly to their homes, when Sissy, who had been called 
away from Louisa some minutes before, returned. 

“ Who is it ? ” asked Louisa. 

“ It is Mr. Bounderby,” said Sissy, timid of the name, 
' c and your brother Mr. Tom, and a young woman who 
says her name is Rachael, and that* you know her.” 


HARD TIMES. 


325 


“ What do they want, Sissy dear ? ” 

“They want to see you. Rachael has been crying, 
find seems angry.” 

“ Father,” said Louisa, for he was present, “ I cannot 
refuse to see them, for a reason that will explain itself. 
Shall they come in here ? ” 

As he answered in the affirmative, Sissy went away to 
bring them. She reappeared with them directly. Tom 
was last ; and remained standing in the obscurest part of 
the room, near the door. 

“ Mrs. Bounderby,” said her husband, entering with a 
cool nod, “ I don’t disturb you, I hope. This is an un- 
seasonable hour, but here is a young woman who has 
been making statements which render my visit necessary. 
Tom Gradgrind, as your son, young Tom, refuses for 
some obstinate reason or other to say anything at all 
about those statements, good or bad, I am obliged to con- 
front her with your daughter.” 

“You have seen me once before, young lady,” said 
Rachael, standing in front of Louisa. 

Tom coughed. 

“ You have seen me, young lady,” repeated Rachael, 
as she did not answer, “ once before.” 

Tom coughed again. 

“ I have.” 

Rachael cast her eyes proudly towards Mr. Bounderby, 
nd said, “ Will you make it known, young lady, where, 
nd who was there ? ” 

“ I went to the house where Stephen Blackpool lodged, 
on the night of his discharge from his work, and I saw 
you there. He was there too : and an old woman who 
did not speak, and whom I could scarcely see, stood in a 
dark cornsr. My brother was with me.” 


326 


HARD TIMES. 


u Why couldn’t you say so, young Tom ? ” den anded 
Bounderby. 

“ I promised my sister I wouldn’t.” Which Louisa 
hastily confirmed. “And besides,” said the whelp bit- 
terly, “ she tells her own story so precious well — and 
so full — that what business had I to take it out of her 
mouth ! ” 

“ Say, young lady, if you please,” pursued Rachael, 
“ why in an evil hour, you ever came to Stephen’s that 
night.” 

“ I felt compassion for him,” said Louisa, her color 
deepening, “ and I wished to know what he was going to 
do, and wished to offer him assistance.” 

“ Thank you, ma’am,” said Bounderby. “ Much flat- 
tered and obliged.” 

“ Did you offer him,” asked Rachael, “ a bank-note ? ” 

“ Yes ; but he refused it, and would only take two 
pounds in gold.” 

Rachael cast her eyes towards Mr. Bounderby again. 

“ Oh certainly ! ” said Bounderby. “ If you put the 
question whether your ridiculous and improbable account 
was true or not, I am bound to say it’s confirmed.” 

“ Young lady,” said Rachael, “ Stephen Blackpool is 
now named as a thief in public print all over this town, 
and where else ! There have been a meeting to-night 
where he have been spoken of in the same shameful way. 
Stephen ! The honestest lad, the truest lad, the best ! ” 
Her indignation failed her, and she broke off, sobbing. 

“ I am very, very sorry,” said Louisa. 

“ O young lady, young lady,” returned Rachael, “ I 
hope you may be, but I don t know ! I can’t say what 
you may ha’ done ! The like of you don’t know us, 
don’t care for us, don’t belong to us. I am not sure why 


HARD TIMES. 


327 


you may ha’ come that night. I can’t tell but what you 
may lia’ come wi’ some aim of your own, not mindin to 
what trouble you brought such as the poor lad. I said 
then, Bless you for coming ; and I said it of my heart, 
you seemed to take so pitifully to him ; but I don’t know 
now, I don’t know ! ” 

Louisa could not reproach her for her unjust suspi- 
cions ; she was so faithful to her idea of the man, and so 
afflicted. 

“ And when I think,” said Rachael through her sobs, 
“ that the poor lad was so grateful, thinkin you so good 
to him — when I mind that he put his hand over his 
hard-worken face to hide the tears that you brought up 
there — 0, I hope you may be sorry, and ha’ no bad 
cause to be it ; but I don’t know, I don’t know ! ” 

“ You’re a pretty article,” growled the whelp, moving 
uneasily in his dark corner, “ to come here with these 
precious imputations ! You ought to be bundled out for 
not knowing how to behave yourself, and you would be 
by rights.” 

She said nothing in reply ; and her low weeping was 
the only sound that was heard, until Mr. Bounderby 
spoke. 

“ Come ! ” said he, “ you know what you have en- 
gaged to do. You had better give your mind to that ; 
not this.” 

“ ’Deed, I am loath,” returned Rachael, drying her 
^yes, “ that any here should see me like this ; but I 
won’t be seen so again. Young lady, when I had read 
what’s put in print of Stephen — and what has just as 
much truth in it as if it had been put in print of you — 
I went straight to the Bank to say I knew where Ste- 
phen was, and to give a sure and certain promise that he 


328 


HARD TIMES. 


should be here in two days. I couldn’t meet wi’ Mr, 
Bounderby then, and your brother sent me away, and I 
tried to find you, but you was not to be found, and I went 
back to work. Soon as I come out of the Mill to-night, 
I hastened to hear what was said of Stephen — for I 
know wi’ pride he will come back to shame it ! — and 
then I went again to seek Mr. Bounderby, and I found 
him, and I told him every word I knew ; and he believed 
no word I said, and brought me here.” 

“ So far, that’s true enough,” assented Mr. Bounderby, 
with his hands in his pockets and his hat on. “ But I 
have known you people before to-day, you’ll observe, 
and I know you never die for want of talking. Now, I 
recommend you not so much to mind talking just now, 
as doing. You have undertaken to do something ; all I 
remark upon that at present is, do it ! ” 

“ I have written to Stephen by the post that went out 
this afternoon, as I have written to him once before sin’ 
he went away,” said Rachael ; “ and he will be here, at 
furthest, in two days.” 

“ Then, I’ll tell you something. You are not aware 
perhaps,” retorted Mr. Bounderby, “that you yourself 
have been looked after now and then, not being considered 
quite free from suspicion in this business, on account of 
most people being judged according to the company they 
keep. The post-office hasn’t been forgotten either. What 
I’ll tell you is, that no letter to Stephen Blackpool has 
ever got into it. Therefore, what has become of yours, 
I leave you to guess. Perhaps you’re mistaken, and 
never wrote any.” 

“ He hadn’t been gone from here, young lady,” said 
Rachael, turning appealingly to Louisa, “as much as a 
week, when he sent me the only letter I have had 


HARD TIMES. 


329 


from him, saying that he was forced to seek work in an- 
other name.” 

“ Oh, by George ! ” cried Bounderby, shaking his head, 
with a whistle, “ he changes his name, does he ! That’s 
rather unlucky, too, for such an immaculate chap. It’s 
considered a little suspicious in Courts of Justice, I 
believe, when an Innocent happens to have many 
names.” 

“ What,” said Rachael, with the tears in her eyes 
again, “ what, young lady, in the name of Mercy, was 
left the poor lad to do ! The masters against him on one 
hand, the men against him on the other, he only wantin 
to work hard in peace, and do what he felt right. Can 
a man have no soul of his own, no mind of his own ? 
Must he go wrong all through wi’ this side, or must he 
go wrong all through wi’ that, or else be hunted like a 
hare ? ” 

“ Indeed, indeed, I pity him from my heart,” returned 
Louisa ; “ and I hope that he will clear himself.” 

“ You need have no fear of that, young lady. He is 
sure ! ” 

“ All the surer, I suppose,” said Mr. Bounderby, “ for 
your refusing to tell where he is ? Eh ? ” 

u He shall not, through any act of mine, come back 
wi’ the unmerited reproach of being brought back. He 
shall come back of his own accord to clear himself, and 
put all those that have injured his good character, and 
he not here for its defence, to shame. I have told him 
what has been done against him,” said Rachael, throwing 
off all distrust as a rock throws off the sea, “ and he will 
oe here, at furthest, in two days.” 

“ Notwithstanding which,” added Mr. Bounderby, “ if 
he can be laid hold of any sooner, he shall have an ear- 


330 


HARD TIMES. 


Her opportunity of clearing himself. As to you, I have 
nothing against you ; what you came and told me turns 
out to be true, and I have given you the means of prov- 
ing it to be true, and there’s an end of it. I wish vou 
good night all ! I must he oft’ to look a little further 
into this.” 

Tom came out of his corner when Mr. Bounderby 
moved, moved with him, kept close to him, and went 
away with him. The only parting salutation of which 
he delivered himself was a sulky “ Good night, father ! ” 
With a brief speech, and a scowl at his sister, he left the 
house. 

Since his sheet-anchor had come home, Mr. Gradgrind 
had been sparing of speech. He still sat silent, when 
Louisa mildly said : 

“ Rachael, you will not distrust me one day, when you 
know me better.” 

“ It goes against me,” Rachael answered, in a gentler 
manner, “ to mistrust any one ; but when I am so mis- 
trusted — when we all are — I cannot keep such things 
quite out of my mind. I ask your pardon for having 
done you an injury. I don’t think what I said now. 
Yet I might come to think it again, wi’ the poor lad so 
wronged.” 

“ Did you tell him in your letter ” inquired Sissy, 
“ that suspicion seemed to have fallen upon him, because 
he had been seen about the bank at night ? He would 
then know what he would have to explain on coming 
back, and would be ready.” 

“ Yes, dear,” she returned ; “ but I can’t guess what 
can have ever taken him there. He never used to go 
there. It was never in his way His way was the 
same as mine, and not near it.” 


HARD TIMES. 


331 


Sissy had already been at her side asking her where 
she lived, and whether she might come to-morrow night, 
to inquire if there were news of him. 

“ I doubt,” said Rachael, “ if he can be here till next 
day.” 

“ Then I will come next night too,” said Sissy. 

When Rachael, assenting to this, was gone, Mr. Grad- 
grind lifted up his head, and said to his daughter : 

“ Louisa, my dear, I have never, that I know of, seen 
this man. Do you believe him to be implicated ? ” 

“ I think I have believed it, father, though with great 
difficulty. I do not believe it now.” 

“ That is to say, you once persuaded yourself to believe 
it, from knowing him to be suspected. His appearance 
and manner ; are they so honest ? ” 
u Very honest.” 

“ And her confidence not to be shaken ! I ask my- 
self,” said Mr. Gradgrind, musing, “ does the real culprit 
know of these accusations ? Where is he ? Who is 
he?” 

His hair had latterly began to change its color. As 

he leaned upon his hand again, looking gray and old, 

Louisa, with a face of fear and pity, hurriedly went over 

to him, and sat close at his side. Her eyes by accident 

met Sissy’s at the moment. Sissy flushed and started, 

& 

and Louisa put her finger on her lip. 

Next night, when Sissy returned home and told Louisa 
that Stephen was not come, she told it in a whisper. 
Next night again, when she came home with the same 
account, and added that he had not been heard of, she 
spoke in the same low frightened tone. From the mo- 
ment of that interchange of looks, they never uttered his 
name, or any reference to him, aloud ; nor ever pursued 


332 


HARD TIMES. 


the subject of the robbery, when Mr. Gradgrind spoke 
of it. 

The two appointed days ran out, three days and nights 
ran out, and Stephen Blackpool was not come, and re- 
mained unheard of. On the fourth day, Rachael, with 
unabated confidence, but considering her dispatch to have 
miscarried, went up to the Bank, and showed her letter 
from him with his address, at a working colony, one of 
many, not upon the main road, sixty miles away. Mes- 
sengers were sent to that place, and the whole town 
looked for Stephen to be brought in next day. 

During this whole time the whelp moved about with 
Mr. Bounderby like his shadow, assisting in all the pro- 
ceedings. He was greatly excited, horribly fevered, bit 
his nails down to the quick, spoke in a hard rattling 
voice, and with lips that were black and burnt up. At 
the hour when the suspected man was looked for, the 
whelp was at the station ; offering to wager that he had 
made off before the arrival of those who were sent in 
quest of him, and that he would not appear. 

The whelp was right. The messengers returned 
alone. Rachael’s letter had gone, Rachael’s letter had 
been delivered, Stephen Blackpool had decamped in 
that same hour ; and no soul knew more of him. The 
only doubt in Coketown was, whether Rachael had writ- 
ten in good faith, believing that he really would come 
back, or warning him to fly. On this point opinion was 
divided. 

Six days, seven days, far on into another week. The 
wretched whelp plucked up a ghastly courage, and began 
to grow defiant. “ Was the suspected fellow the thief? 
A pretty question ! If not, where was the man, and why 
did he not come back ? ” 


HARD TIMES. 


333 


Where was the man, and why did he not come back ? 
In the dead of night the echoes of his own words, which 
had rolled Heaven knows how far away in the daytime, 
came back instead, and abided by him until morning. 



HARD TIMES. 

AND REPRINTED PIECES 


VOLUME II. 





HARD TIMES. 


BOOK THE THIRD. 

GARNERING. 

(CONTINUED.) 

— ♦ — 

CHAPTER V. 

FOUND. 

Day and night again, day and night again. No Ste- 
phen Blackpool. Where was the man, and why did he 
not come back ? 

Every night, Sissy went to Rachael’s lodging, and sat 
with her in her small neat room. All day, Rachael 
toiled as such people must toil, whatever their anxieties. 
The smoke-serpents were indifferent who was lost or 
found, who turned out bad or good ; the melancholy mad 
elephants, like the Hard Fact men, abated nothing of 
their set routine, whatever happened. Day and night 
again, day and night again. The monotony was unbroken. 
Even Stephen Blackpool’s disappearance was falling into 
the general way, and becoming as monotonous a wonder 
as any piece of machinery in Coketown. 

“ I misdoubt,” said Rachael, “ if there is as many as 
twenty left in all this place, who have any trust in the 
poor dear lad now.” 

She said it to Sissy, as they sat in her lodging, lighted 


8 


HARD TIMES. 


only by the lamp at the street-corner. Sissy had come 
there when it was already dark, to await her return from 
work ; and they had since sat at the window where 
Rachael had found her, wanting no brighter light to shine 
on their sorrowful talk. 

“ If it hadn’t been mercifully brought about, that I was 
to have you to speak to,” pursued Rachael, “ times are, 
when I think my mind would not have kept right. But 
I get hope and strength through you ; and you believe 
that though appearances may rise against him, he will 
be proved clear ? ” 

“ I do believe so,” returned Sissy, “ with my whole 
heart. I feel so certain, Rachael, that the confidence you 
hold in yours against all discouragement, is not like to be 
wrong ; that I have no more doubt of him than if I had 
known him through as many years of trial as you 
have.” 

“ And I, my dear,” said Rachael, with a tremble in hei 
voice, “ have known him through them all, to be, accord- 
ing to his quiet ways, so faithful to everything honest 
and good, that if he was never to be heard of more, and 
I was to live to be a hundred years old, I could say with 
my last breath, God knows my heart. I have never 
once left trusting Stephen Blackpool ! ” 

“ We all believe, up at the Lodge, Rachael, that he 
will be freed from suspicion, sooner or later.” 

“ The better I know it to be so believed there, my 
dear,” said Rachael, “ and the kinder I feel it that you 
come away from there, purposely to comfort me, and 
keep me company, and be seen wi’ me when I am not 
yet free from all suspicion myself, the more grieved I 
\m that I should ever have spoken those mistrusting 
words to the young lady. And yet ” — 


HARD TIMES. 


9 


“ You don't mistrust her now, Rachael ? ” 

“ Now that you have brought us more together, no. 
But I can’t at all times keep out of my mind ” — 

Her voice so sunk into a low and slow communing 
with herself, that Sissy, sitting by her side, was obliged 
to listen with attention. 

“ I can’t at all times keep out of my mind, mistrust 
ings of some one. I can’t think who ’tis, I can’t think 
how or why it may be done, but I mistrust that some one 
has put Stephen out of the way. I mistrust that by his 
coming back of his own accord, and showing himself in- 
nocent before them all, some one would be confounded, 
who — to prevent that — has stopped him, and put him 
out of the way.” 

“That is a dreadful thought,” said Sissy, turning 
pale. 

“ It is a dreadful thought to think he may be mur- 
dered.” 

Sissy shuddered, and turned paler yet. 

“ When it makes its way into my mind, dear,” said 
Rachael, “ and it will come sometimes, though I do all I 
can to keep it out, wi’ counting on to high numbers as I 
work, and saying over and over again pieces that I knew 
when I were a child — I fall into such a wild, hot hurry, 
that, however tired I am, I want to walk fast, miles and 
miles. I must get the better of this before bedtime. 
I’ll walk home wi’ you.” 

“ He might fall ill upon the journey back,” said Sissy, 
faintly offering a worn-out scrap of hope ; “ and in such 
a case, there are many places on the road where he 
might stop.” 

“ But he is in none of them. He has been sought for 
in all, and he’s not there.” 


10 


HARD TIMES. 


“True/’ was Sissy’s reluctant admission. 

“ He’d walk the journey in two days. If he was 
footsore and couldn’t walk, I sent him, in the letter he 
got, the money to ride, lest he should have none of his 
own to spare.” 

“ Let us hope that to-morrow will bring something 
better, Rachael. Come into the air ! ” 

Her gentle hand adjusted Rachael’s shawl upon her 
shining black hair in the usual manner of her wearing it, 
and they went out. The night being fine, little knots of 
Hands were here and there lingering at street- corners ; 
but it was supper-time with the greater part of them, 
and there were but few people in the streets. 

“ You’re not so hurried now, Rachael, and your hand 
is cooler.” 

“ I get better, dear, if I can only walk, and breathe a 
little fresh. ’Times when I can’t, I turn weak and con- 
fused.” 

“ But you must not begin to fail, Rachael, for you may 
be wanted at any time to stand by Stephen. To-morrow 
is Saturday. If no news comes to-morrow, let us walk 
in the country on Sunday morning, and strengthen you 
for another week. Will you go ? ” 

“ Yes, dear.” 

They were by this time in the street where Mr. Boun- 
derby’s house stood. The way to Sissy’s destination led 
them past the door, and they were going straight towards 
it. Some train had newly arrived in Coketown, which 
had put a number of vehicles in motion, and scattered a 
considerable bustle about the town. Several coaches 
were rattling before them and behind them as they ap- 
proached Mr. Bounderby’s, and one of the latter drew 
jp with such briskness as they were in the act of passing 


HARD TIMES. 


11 


the house, that they looked round involuntarily. The 
bright gaslight over Mr. Bounderby’s steps showed them 
Mrs. Sparsit in the coach, in an ecstasy of excitement, 
struggling to open the door ; Mrs. Sparsit seeing them 
at the same moment, called to them to stop. 

66 It’s a coincidence,” exclaimed Mrs. Sparsit, as she 
was released by the coachman. “ It’s a Providence ! 
Come out, ma’am ! ” then said Mrs. Sparsit, to some one 
inside ; “ come out, or we’ll have you dragged out ! ” 

Hereupon, no other than the mysterious old woman 
descended. Whom Mrs. Sparsit incontinently collared. 

“ Leave her alone, everybody ! ” cried Mrs. Sparsit, 
with great energy. “ Let nobody touch her. She be- 
longs to me. Come in, ma'am ! ” then said Mrs. Sparsit, 
reversing her former word of command. “ Come in, 
ma’am, or we’ll have you dragged in ! ” 

The spectacle of a matron of classical deportment, 
seizing an ancient woman by the throat, and haling her 
into a dwelling-house, would have been, under any cir- 
cumstances, sufficient temptation to all true English 
stragglers so blest as to witness it, to force a way into 
that dwelling-house and see the matter out. But when 
the phenomenon was enhanced by the notoriety and mys- 
tery by this time associated all over the town, with the 
Bank robbery, it would have lured the stragglers in, 
with an irresistible attraction, though the roof had been 
expected to fall upon their heads. Accordingly, the 
chance witnesses on the ground, consisting of the busiest 
of the neighbors to the number of some five-and-twenty, 
closed in after Sissy and Rachael, as they closed in after 
Mrs. Sparsit and her prize ; and the whole body made a 
disorderly irruption into Mr. Bounderby’s dining-room, 
;vhere the people behind lost not a moment’s time in 


12 


HARD TIMES. 


mounting on tlie chairs, to get the better of the people 
in front. 

“ Fetch Mr. Bounderby down ! ” cried Mrs. Sparsit. 
“ Rachael, young woman ; you know who this is ? ” 

“ It’s Mrs. Pegler,” said Rachael. 

“ I should think it is ! ” cried Mrs. Sparsit, exulting 
“Fetch Mr. Bounderby. Stand away, everybody!’ 
Here old Mrs. Pegler, muffling herself up, and shrink- 
ing from observation, whispered a word of entreaty. 
“ Don’t tell me,” said Mrs. Sparsit, aloud, “ I have told 
you twenty times, coming along, that I will not leave 
you till I have handed you over to him myself.” 

Mr. Bounderby now appeared, accompanied by Mr. 
Gradgrind and the whelp, with whom he had been hold- 
ing conference up-stairs. Mr. Bounderby looked more 
astonished than hospitable, at sight of this uninvited 
party in his dining-room. 

“ Why, what’s the matter now ! ” said he. Mrs. Spar- 
sit, ma’am ? ” 

“ Sir,” explained that worthy woman, “ I trust it is 
my good fortune to produce a person you have much de- 
sired to find. Stimulated by my wish to relieve your 
mind, sir, and connecting together such imperfect clues 
to the part of the country in which that person might be 
supposed to reside, as have been afforded by the young 
woman Rachael, fortunately now present to identify, I 
have had the happiness to succeed, and to bring that per- 
son with me — I need not say most unwillingly on her 
part. It has not been, sir, without some trouble that I 
have effected this ; but trouble in your service is to me 
a pleasure, and hunger, thirst, and cold a real gratifi- 
cation.” 

Here Mrs. Sparsit ceased ; for Mr. Bounderby’s vis 


HARD TIMES. 


13 


age exhibited an extraordinary combination of all pos- 
sible colors and expressions of discomfiture, as old Mrs. 
Pegler was disclosed to his view. 

“ Why, what do you mean by this ? ” was his highly 
unexpected demand, in great warmth. “ I ask you, what 
do you mean by this, Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am ? ” 

“ Sir 1 ” exclaimed Mrs. Sparsit, faintly. 

“ Why don't you mind your own business, ma’am ? ” 
roared Bounderby. “ How dare you go and poke your 
ofiicious nose into my family affairs ? ” 

This allusion to her favorite feature overpowered Mrs. 
Sparsit. She sat down stiffly in a chair, as if she were 
frozen ; and, with a fixed stare at Mr. Bounderby, slowly 
grated her mittens against one another, as if they were 
frozen too. 

“ My dear Josiah ! ” cried Mrs. Pegler, trembling. 
“My darling boy! I am not to blame. It’s not my 
fault, Josiah. I told this lady, over and over again, that 
I knew she was doing what would not be agreeable to 
you, but she would do it.” 

“ What did you let her bring you for ? Couldn’t you 
knock her cap off, or her tooth out, or scratch her, or do 
something or other to her ? ” asked Bounderby. 

“ My own boy ! She threatened me that if I resisted 
her, I should be brought by constables, and it was better to 
come quietly than make that stir in such a — ” Mrs. Peg- 
ler glanced timidly but proudly round the walls — “ such 
a fine house as this. Indeed, indeed, it is not my fault ! 
My dear, noble, stately boy ! I have always lived quiet 
and secret, Josiah, my dear. I have never broken the 
condition once. I have never said I was your mother. 
I have admired you at a distance ; and if I have come 
to town sometimes with long times between, to take a 


14 


HARD TIMES. 


proud peep at you, I have done it unbeknown, my love, 
and gone away again.” 

Mr. Bounderby, with his hands in his pockets, walked 
in impatient mortification up and down at the side of the 
long dining-table, while the spectators greedily took in 
every syllable of Mrs. Pegler’s appeal, and at each suc- 
ceeding syllable became more and more round-eyed. Mr 
Bounderby still walking up and down when Mrs. Pegler 
had done, Mr. Gradgrind addressed that maligned old lady : 
“ I am surprised, madam,” he observed with severity, 
“ that in your old age you have the face to claim Mr. 
Bounderby for your son, after your unnatural and inhu- 
man treatment of him.” 

“Me unnatural!” cried poor old Mrs. Pegler. “Me 
inhuman ! To my dear boy ? ” 

“ Dear ! ” repeated Mr. Gradgrind. “ Yes ; dear in 
his self-made prosperity, madam, I dare say. Not very 
dear, however, when you deserted him in his infancy, and 
left him to the brutality of a drunken grandmother.” 

“I deserted my Josiah ! ” cried Mrs. Pegler, clasping 
her hands. “ Now, Lord forgive you, sir, for your wicked 
imaginations, and for your scandal against the memory 
of my poor mother, who died in my arms before Josiah 
was born. May you repent of it, sir, and live to know 
better ! ” 

She was so very earnest and injured, that Mr. Grad- 
grind, shocked by the possibility which dawned upon 
him, said in a gentler tone : 

“ Do you deny, then, madam, that you left your son 
to — to be brought up in the gutter ? ” 

“ Josiah in the gutter ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Pegler. “ No 

O O 

such a thing, sir. Never ! For shame on you ! My 
lear boy knows, and will give you to know, that though 


HARD TIMES. 


15 


he come of humble parents, he come of parents that 
loved him as dear as the best could, and never thought 
it hardship on themselves to pinch a bit that he might 
write and cypher beautiful, and I’ve his books at home 
to show it ! Ay, have I ! ” said Mrs. Pegler, with in 
dignant pride. “ And my dear boy knows, and will giv 
you to know, sir, that after his beloved father died when 
he was eight year old, his mother, too, could pinch a bit. 
as it was her duty and her pleasure and her pride to dc 
it, to help him out in life, and put him ’prentice. And a 
steady lad he was, and a kind master he had to lend him 
a hand, and well he worked his own way forward to be 
rich and thriving. And i’ll give you to know, sir — for , 
this my dear boy won’t — that though his mother kept 
but a little village shop, he never forgot her, but pen- 
sioned me on thirty pound a year — more than I want, 
for I pirt by out of it — only making the condition that 
I was to keep down in my own part, and make no boasts 
about him, and not trouble him. And I never have, ex- 
cept with looking at him once a year, when he has never 
knowed it. And it’s right,” said poor old Mrs. Pegler, 
in affectionate championship, “ that I should keep down 
in my own part, and I have no doubts that if I was here 
I should do a many unbefitting things, and I am well 
contented, and I can keep my pride in my Josiah to my- 
self, and I can love for love’s own sake ! And I am 
ashamed of you, sir,” said Mrs. Pegler, lastly, “ for your 
slanders and suspicions. And I never stood here before, 
nor I never wanted to stand here when my dear son said 
no. And I shouldn’t be here now, if it hadn’t been for 
being brought here. And for shame upon you, 0 for 
shame, to accuse me of being a bad mother to my son 
with my son standing here to tell you so different ! ” 


i 


16 


HARD TIMES. 


The bystanders, on and off the dining-room chairs, 
raised a murmur of sympathy with Mrs. Pegler, and Mr. 
Gradgrind felt himself innocently placed in a very dis- 
tressing predicament, when Mr. Bounderby, who had 
never ceased walking up and down, and had every mo- 
ment swelled larger and larger, and grown redder and 
redder, stopped short. 

“ I don’t exactly know,” said Mr. Bounderby, “ how I 
come to be favored with the attendance of the present 
company, but I don’t inquire. When they’re quite satis- 
fied, perhaps they’ll be so good as to disperse ; whether 
they’re satisfied or not, perhaps they’ll be so good as to 
disperse. I’m not bound to deliver a lecture on my 
family affairs ; I have not undertaken to do it, and I’m 
not a going to do it. Therefore those who expect any 
explanation whatever upon that branch of the subject, 
will be disappointed — particularly Tom Gradgrind, and 
he can’t know it too soon. In reference to the Bank 
robbery, there has been a mistake made, concerning my 
mother. If there hadn’t been over-officiousness it wouldn’t 
have been made, and I hate over-officiousness at all times, 
whether or no. Good evening ! ” 

Although Mr. Bounderby carried it off in these terms, 
holding the door open for the company to depart, there 
was a blustering sheepishness upon him, at once ex- 
tremely crestfallen and superlatively absurd. Detected 
as the Bully of humility, who had built his windy repu- 
tation upon lies, and in his boastfulness had put the 
honest truth as far away from him as if he had advanced 
the mean claim (there is no meaner) to tack himself on 
to a pedigree, he cut a most ridiculous figure. With the 
oeople filing off at the door he held, who he knew would 
carry what had passed to the whole town, to be given to 


HARD TIMES. 


17 


the four winds, he could not have looked a Bully more 
shorn and forlorn, if he had had his ears cropped. Even 
that unlucky female, Mrs. Sparsit, fallen from her pinna- 
cle of exultation into the Slough of Despond, was not in 
so bad a plight as that remarkable man and self-made 
Humbug, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. 

Rachael and Sissy, leaving Mrs. Pegler to occupy a 
bed at her son’s for that night, walked together to the 
gate of Stone Lodge and there parted. Mr. Gradgrind 
joined them before they had gone very far, and spoke 
with much interest of Stephen Blackpool ; for whom he 
thought this signal failure of the suspicions against Mrs. 
Pegler was likely to work well. 

As to the whelp ; throughout this scene as on all other 
late occasions, he had stuck close to Bounderby. He 
seemed to feel that as long as Bounderby could make no 
discovery without his knowledge, he was so far safe. He 
never visited his sister, and had only seen her once since 
she went home : that is to say, on the night when he still 
stuck close to Bounderby, as already related. 

There was one dim unformed fear lingering about his 
sister’s mind, to which she never gave utterance, which 
surrounded the graceless and ungrateful boy with a 
dreadful mystery. The same dark possibility had pre- 
sented itself in the same shapeless guise, this very day 
to Sissy, when Rachael spoke of some one who would be 
confounded by Stephen’s return, having put him out of 
the way. Louisa had never spoken of harboring any 
suspicion of her brother, in connection with the robbery 
she and Sissy had held no confidence on the subject, save 
in that one interchange of looks when the unconscious 
father rested his gray head on his hand ; but it was 
understood between them, and they both knew it. This 


VOL. II. 


18 


HARD TIMES. 


other fear was so awful, that it hovered about each of 
them like a ghostly shadow ; neither daring to think 
of its being near herself, far less of its being near the 
other. 

And still the forced spirit which the whelp had plucked 
up, throve with him. If Stephen Blackpool was not th 
thief, let him show himself. Why didn’t he ? 

Another night. Another day and night. No Stephen 
Blackpool. Where was the man, and why did he not 
come back ? 


HARD TIMES. 


19 


CHAPTER VI. 

THE STARLIGHT. 

The Sunday was a bright Sunday in autumn, clear 
and cool, when early in the morning Sissy and Rachael 
met, to walk in the country. 

As Coketown cast ashes not only on its own head but 
on the neighborhood’s too — after the manner of those 
pious persons who do penance for their own sins by put- 
ting other people into sackcloth — it was customary for 
those who now and then thirsted for a draught of pure 
air, which is not absolutely the most wicked among the 
vanities of life, to get a few miles away by the railroad, 
and then begin their walk, or their lounge in the fields. 
Sissy and Rachael helped themselves out of the smoke 
by the usual means, and were put down at a station about 
midway between the town and Mr. Bounderby’s retreat. 

Though the green landscape was blotted here and 
there with heaps of coal, it was green elsewhere, and 
there were trees to see, and there were larks singing 
(though it was Sunday), and there were pleasant scents 
in the air, and all was overarched by bright blue sky. 
In the distance one way, Coketown showed as a black 
mist ; in another distance, hills began to rise ; in a third, 
there was a faint change in the light of the horizon, 
where it shone upon the far-off sea. Under their feet, 
the grass was fresh ; beautiful shadows of branches flick- 


20 


HARD TIMES. 


ered upon it, and speckled it; hedgerows were luxuriant ; 
everything was at peace. Engines at pits’ mouths, and 
lean old horses that had worn the circle of their daily 
labor into the ground, were alike quiet ; wheels had 
ceased for a short space to turn ; and the great wheel of 
earth seemed to revolve without the shocks and noises 
of another time. 

They walked on across the fields and down the shady 
lanes, sometimes getting over a fragment of a fence so 
rotten that it dropped at a touch of the foot, sometimes 
passing near a wreck of bricks and beams overgrown 
with grass, marking the site of deserted works. They 
followed paths and tracks, however slight. Mounds 
where the grass was rank and high, and where bram- 
bles, dock-weed, and such like vegetation, were confusedly 
heaped together, they always avoided ; for dismal stories 
were told in that country of the old pits hidden beneath 
such indications. 

The sun was high when they sat down to rest. They 
had seen no one, near or distant, for a long time ; and 
the solitude remained unbroken. “ It is so still here, 
Rachael, and the way is so untrodden, that I think we 
must be the first who have been here all the summer.” 

As Sissy said it, her eyes were attracted by another 
of those rotten fragments of fence upon the ground. She 
got up to look at it. “And yet I don’t know. This 
has not been broken very long. The wood is quite 
fresh where it gave way. Here are footsteps too. — 0 
Rachael ! ” 

She ran back, and caught her round the neck. Rachael 
had already started up. 

“ What is the matter ? ” 

“ I don’t know. There is a hat lying in the grass.” 




HARD TIMES. 


21 




They went forward together. Rachael took it up, 
shaking from head to foot. She broke into a passion of 
tears and lamentations : Stephen Blackpool was written 
in his own hand on the inside. 

“ 0 the poor lad, the poor lad ! He has been made 
away with. He is lying murdered here ! ” 

* Is there — has the hat any blood upon it ? ” Sissy 
faltered. 

They were afraid to look ; but they did examine it, 
and found no mark of violence, inside or out. It had 
been lying there some days, for rain and dew had stained 
it, and the mark of its shape was on the grass where it 
had fallen. They looked fearfully about them, without 
moving, but could see nothing more. “ Rachael,” Sissy 
whispered, “ I will go on a little by myself.” 

She had unclasped her hand, and was in the act of 
stepping forward, when Rachael caught her in both arms 
with a scream that resounded over the wide landscape. 
Before them, at their very feet, was the brink of a black 
ragged chasm hidden by the thick grass. They sprang 
back, and fell upon their knees, each hiding her face upon 
the other’s neck. 

“ 0, my good Lord ! He’s down there ! Down there ! ” 
At first this, and her terrific screams, were all that could 
be got from Rachael, by any tears, by any prayers, by 
any representations, by any means. It was impossible to 
hush her ; and it was deadly necessary to hold her, or 
she would have flung herself down the shaft. 

“ Rachael, dear Rachael, good Rachael, for the love 
of Heaven not these dreadful cries ! Think of Stephen, 
think of Stephen, think of Stephen ! ” 

By an earnest repetition of this entreaty, poured out 
in all the agony of such a moment, Sissy at last brought 


4 * 


22 


HARD TIMES. 


her to be silent, and to look at her with a tearless face 
of stone. 

“ Rachael, Stephen may be living. You wouldn’t 
leave him lying maimed at the bottom of this dreadful 
place, a moment, if you could bring help to him ! ” 

“ No, no, no ! ” 

“ Don’t stir from here, for his sake ! Let me go and 
listen.” 

She shuddered to approach the pit ; but she crept 
towards it on her hands and knees, and called to him as 
loud as she could call. She listened, but no sound re- 
plied. She called again and listened ; still no answering 
sound. She did this, twenty, thirty times. She took a 
little clod of earth from the broken ground where he had 
stumbled, and threw it in. She could not hear it fall. 

The wide prospect, so beautiful in its stillness but a 
few minutes ago, almost carried despair to her brave 
heart, as she rose and looked all round her, seeing no 
help. “ Rachael, we must lose not a moment. We must 
go in different directions, seeking aid. You shall go by 
the way we have come, and I will go forward by the 
path. Tell any one you see, and every one what has 
happened. Think of Stephen, think of Stephen ! ” 

She knew by Rachael’s face that she might trust her 
now. And after standing for a moment to see her run- 
ning, wringing her hands as she ran, she turned and went 
upon her own search ; she stopped at the hedge to tie her 
shawl there as a guide to the place, then threw her bonnet 
aside, and ran as she had never run before. 

Run, Sissy, run, in Heaven’s name ! Don’t stop for 
breath. Run, run ! Quickening herself by carrying such 
entreaties in her thoughts, she ran from field to field, and 
iane to lane, and place* to place, as she had never run he- 


's 


m 

\ 





She shuddered to approach die pjt. hut she crept towards 
it on tier hands and Knees , and called to Hum as loud as 
site could call. She listened,- it h no sound redded". 

Jjoo/o .3 d ' Cnap 6 . 


I 





HARD TIMES. 


23 


fore ; until she came to a shed by an engine-house, where 
two men lay in the shade, asleep on straw. 

First to wake them, and next to tell them, all so wild 
and breathless as she was, what had brought her there, 
were difficulties ; but they no sooner understood her than 
their spirits were on fire like hers. One of the men was 
in a drunken slumber, but on his comrade’s shouting to 
him that a man had fallen down the Old Hell Shaft, he 
started out to a pool of dirty water, put his head in it, 
and came back sober. 

With these two men she ran to another, half-a-mile 

/ 

further, and with that one to another, while they ran else- 
where. Then a horse was found ; and she got another 
man to ride for life or death to the railroad, and send a 
message to Louisa, which she wrote and gave him. By 
this time a whole village was up ; and windlasses, ropes, 
poles, candles, lanterns, all things necessary, were fast 
collecting and being brought into one place, to be carried 
to the Old Hell Shaft. 

It seemed now hours and hours since she had left the 
lost man lying in the grave where he had been buried 
alive. She could not bear to remain away from it any 
longer — it was like -deserting him — and she hurried 
swiftly back, accompanied by half a dozen laborers, includ- 
ing the drunken man whom the news had sobered, and 
who was the best man of all. When they came to the 
Old Hell Shaft, they found it as lonely as she had left it. 
The men called and listened as she had done, and exam- 
ined the edge of the chasm, and settled how it had hap- 
pened, and then sat down to wait until the implements 
they wanted should come up. 

Every sound of insects in the air, every stirring of the 
leaves, evexy whisper among these men, made Sissy trem* 


24 


HARD TIMES. 


ble, for she thought it was a cry at the bottom of the pit, 
But the wind blew idly over it, and no sound arose to the 
surface, and they sat upon the grass, waiting and waiting. 
After they had waited some time, straggling people who 
had heard of the accident began to come up ; then the 
real help of implements began to arrive. In the midst 
of this, Rachael returned ; and with her party there 
was a surgeon, who brought some wine and medicines. 
But, the expectation among the people that the man 
would be found alive, was very slight indeed. 

There being now people enough present to impede the 
work, the sobered man put himself at the head of the 
rest, or was put there by the general consent, and made 
a large ring round the Old Hell Shaft, and appointed men 
to keep it. Besides such volunteers as were accepted 
to work, only Sissy and Rachael were at first permitted 
within this ring ; but, later in the day, when the message 
brought an express from Coketown, Mr. Gradgrind and 
Louisa, and Mr. Bounderby, and the whelp, were also 
there. 

The sun was four hours lower than when Sissy and 
Rachael had first sat down upon the grass, before a means 
of enabling two men to descend securely was rigged with 
poles and ropes. Difficulties had arisen in the construc- 
tion of this machine, simple as it was ; requisites had 
been found wanting, and messages had to go and return. 
It was five o’clock in the* afternoon of the bright autum- 
nal Sunday, before a candle was sent down to try the air, 
while three or four rough faces stood crowded close to- 
gether. attentively watching it : the men at the windlass 
lowering as they were told. The candle was brought up 
again, feebly burning, and then some water was cast in. 
Then the bucket was hooked on ; and the sobered man 


HARD TIMES. 


25 


and another got in with lights, giving the word “ Lower 
away ! ” 

As the rope went out, tight and strained, and the wind- 
lass creaked, there was not a breath among the one or 
two hundred men and women looking on, that came as it 
was wont to come. The signal was given and the wind- 
lass stopped, with abundant rope to spare. - Apparently 
so long an interval ensued with the men at the windlass 
standing idle, that some women shrieked that another 
accident had happened ? But the surgeon who held the 
watch, declared five minutes not to have elapsed yet, and 
sternly admonished them to keep silence. He had not 
well done speaking, when the windlass was reversed and 
worked again. Practised eyes knew that it did not go 
as heavily as it would if both workmen had been coming 
up, and that only one was returning. 

The rope came in tight and strained ; and ring after 
ring was coiled upon the barrel of the windlass, and all 
eyes were fastened on the pit. The sobered man was 
brought up and leaped out briskly on the grass. There 
was an universal cry of “ Alive or dead ? ” and then a 
deep, profound hush. 

When he said “ Alive ! ” a great shout arose and many 
eyes had tears in them. 

“ But lie’s hurt very bad,” he added, as soon as he could 
make himself heard again. “ Where’s doctor ? He’s 
hurt so very bad, sir, that we donno how to get him up.” 

They all consulted together, and looked anxiously at 
the surgeon, as he asked some questions, and shook his 
head on receiving the replies. The sun was setting now ; 
and the red light in the evening sky touched every face 
there, and caused it to be distinctly seen in all its wrapt 
luspense. 


26 


HARD TIMES. 


The consultation ended in the men returning to the 
windlass, and the pitman going down again, carrying the 
wine and some other small matters with him. Then the 
other man came up. In the mean time, under the sur- 
geon’s directions, some men brought a hurdle, on which 
others made a thick bed of spare clothes covered with 
loose straw, while he himself contrived some bandages 
and slings from shawls and handkerchiefs. As these were 
made, they were hung upon an arm of the pitman who had 
last come up, with instructions how to use them : and as 
he stood, shown by the light he carried, leaning his power- 
ful loose hand upon one of the poles, and sometimes glanc- 
ing down the pit, and sometimes glancing round upon the 
people, he was not the least conspicuous figure in the 
scene. It was dark now, and torches were kindled. 

It appeared from the little this man said to those about 
him, which was quickly repeated all over the circle, that 
the lost man had fallen upon a mass of crumbled rubbish 
with which the pit was half choked up, and that his fall 
had been further broken by some jagged earth at the 
side. He lay upon his back with one arm doubled under 
him, and according to his own belief had hardly stirred 
since he fell, except that he had moved his free hand to 
a side pocket, in which he remembered to have some 
bread and meat (of which he had swallowed crumbs), 
and had likewise scooped up a little water in it now and 
then. He had come straight away from his work, on 
being written to, and had walked the whole journey ; and 
was on his way to Mr. Bounderby’s country-house after 
dark, when he fell. He was crossing that dangerous 
country at such a dangerons time, because he was inno- 
cent of what was laid to his charge, and couldn't rest 
from coming the nearest way to deliver himself up. The 


HARD TIMES. 


n 


Old Hell Shaft, the pitman said, with a curse upon it, 
was worthy of its bad name to the last ; for though Ste- 
phen could speak now, he believed it would soon be 
found to have mangled the life out of him. 

When all was ready, this man, still taking his last hur- 
ried charges from his comrades and the surgeon after the 
windlass had begun to lower him, disappeared into the pit. 
The rope went out as before, the signal was made as be- 
fore, and the windlass stopped. No man removed his hand 
from it now. Every one waited with his grasp set, and 
his body bent down to the work, ready to reverse and 
wind in. At length the signal was given, and all the ring 
leaned forward. 

For, now, the rope came in, tightened and strained to 
its utmost as it appeared, and the men turned heavily, 
and the windlass complained. It was scarcely endurable 
to look at the rope, and think of its giving way. But, 
ring after ring was coiled upon the barrel of the wind- 
lass safely, and the connecting chains appeared, and 
finally the bucket with the two men holding on at the 
sides — a sight to make the head swim, and oppress 
the heart — and tenderly supporting between them, slung 
and tied within, the figure of a poor, crushed, human 
creature. 

A low murmur of pity went round the throng, and the 
women wept aloud, as this form, almost without form, 
was moved very slowly from its iron deliverance, and laid 
upon the bed of straw. At first, none but the surgeon 
went close to it. He did what he could in its adjustment 
on the couch, but the best that he could do was to cover 
it. That gently done, he called to him Bachael and Sissy. 
And at that time the pale, worn, patient face was seen 
’ooking up at the sky, with the broken right hand lying 


28 


HARD TIMES. 


bare on the outside of the covering garments, as if wait 
ing to be taken by another hand. 

They gave him drink, moistened his face with water, 
and administered some drops of cordial and wine. 
Though he lay quite motionless looking up at the sky, 
he smiled and said, “ Rachael.” 

She stooped down on the grass at his side, and bent 
over him until her eyes were between his and the 
sky, for he could not so much as turn them to look at 
her. 

“ Rachael, my dear.” 

She took his hand. He smiled again and said, “ Don’t 
let ’t go.” 

“ Thou’rt in great pain, my own dear Stephen ? ” 

“ I ha’ been, but not now. I ha’ been — dreadful, and 
dree, and long, my dear — but ’tis ower now. Ah, 
Rachael, aw a muddle ! Fro’ first to last, a muddle ! ’ 

The spectre of his old look seemed to pass as he said 
the word. 

“ 1 ha’ fell into tli’ pit, my dear, as have cost wi’in the 
knowledge o’ old fok now livin, hundreds and hundreds 
o’ men’s lives — fathers, sons, brothers, dear to thousands 
an thousands, and keepin ’em fro’ want and hunger. I 
ha’ fell into a pit that ha’ been wi’ th’ Fire-damp crueller 
than battle. I ha’ read on ’t in the public petition, as 
onny one may read, fro’ the men that works in pits, in 
which they ha’ pray’n an pray’n the lawmakers for 
Christ’s sake not to let their work be murder to ’em, 
but to spare ’em for th’ wives and children that they loves 
as well as gentlefok loves theirs. When it were in work, 
it killed wi’out need ; when ’tis let alone, it kills wi’out 
need. See how we die an no need, one way an another • 
— in a muddle — every day ! ” 




V 


HARD TIMES. 


29 


He faintly said it, without any anger against any one. 
Merely as the truth. 

“ Thy little sister, Rachael, thou hast not forgot her. 
Thou’rt not like to forget her now, and me so nigh her. 
Thou know’st — poor, patient, suff’rin, dear — how thou 
didst work for her, seet’n all day long in her little chair 
at thy winder, and how she died, young and misshapen, 
awlung o’ sickly air as had’n no need to be, an awlung o’ 
working people’s miserable homes. A muddle ! Aw a 
muddle ! ” 

Louisa approached him ; but he could not see her, 
lying with his face turned up to the night-sky. 

“ If aw th’ things that tooches us, my dear, was not so 
muddled, I should’n ha’ had’n need to coom heer. If we 
was not in a muddle among ourseln, I should’n ha’ been, 
by my own fellow-weavers and workin’ brothers, so mis- 
took. If Mr. Bounderby had ever know’d me right — 
if he’d ever know’d me at aw — he would’n ha’ took’n 
offence wi’ me. He would’n ha’ suspect’n me. But look 
up yonder, Rachael ! Look aboove ! ” 

Following his eyes, she saw that he was gazing at a 
star. 

“ It ha’ shined upon me,” he said reverently, “ in my 
pain and trouble down below. It ha’ shined into my 
mind. I ha’ look’n at ’t an thowt o’ thee, Rachael, till 
the muddle in my mind have cleared awa, above a bit, I 
hope. If soom ha’ been wantin’ in unnersian’in me 
better, I, too, ha’ been wantin’ in unnerstan’in them 
better. When I got thy letter, I easily belie ven that 
what the yoong ledy sen an done to me, an what her 
brother sen and done to me, was one, and that there were 
a wicked plot betwixt ’em. When I fell, I were in anger 
wi’ her, an hurryin on t’ be as onjust t’ her as oothers 


30 


HARD TIMES. 


was t’ me But in our judgments, like as in our doin’s, 
we mun bear and forbear. In my pain an trouble, lookin 
up yonder, — wi’ it shinin’ on me — I ha’ seen more 
clear, and ha’ made it my dyin prayer that aw th’ world 
may on’y coom toogether more, an get a better unner- 
stan’in o’ one another, than when I were in ’t my own 
weak seln.” 

Louisa hearing what he said, bent over him on the op- 
posite side to Rachael, so that he could see her. 

u You ha’ heard ? ” he said after a few moments’ silence. 
“ I ha’ not forgot you, ledy.” 

“ Yes, Stephen, I have heard you. And your prayer 
is mine.” 

“ You ha’ a father. Will yo tak’ a message to him ? ” 

“ He is here,” said Louisa, with dread. “ Shall I bring 
him to you ? ” 

“ If yo please.” 

Louisa returned with her father. Standing hand-in- 
hand, they both looked down upon the solemn counte- 
nance. 

“ Sir, yo will clear me an mak my name good wi.’ aw 
men. This I leave to yo.” 

Mr. Gradgrind was troubled and asked how ? 

“ Sir,” was the reply : “ yor son will tell yo how. Ask 
him. I mak no charges : I leave none ahint me : not a 
single word. I ha’ seen an spok’n wi’ yor son, one night. 
I ask no more o’ yo than that yo clear me — an I trust 
to yo to do ’t.” 

The bearers being now ready to carry him away, and 
the surgeon being anxious for his removal, those who had 
torches or lanterns, prepared to go in front of the litter. 
Before it was raised, and while they were arranging how 
to go, he said to Rachael, looking upward at the star : 


HARD TIMES. 


ol 


“ Often as I coom to myseln, and found it shinin on 
me down there in my trouble, I thowt it were the star as 
guided to Our Saviour’s home. I awmust think it be the 
very star ! ” 

They lifted him up, and he was overjoyed to find that 
they were about to take him in the direction whither the 
star seemed to him to lead. 

“ Rachael, beloved lass ! Don’t let go my hand. We 
may walk toogether t’night, my dear ! ” 

“ I will hold thy hand, and keep beside thee, Steplien ; 
all the way.” 

“ Bless thee ! Will soombody be pleased to coover my 
face ! ” 

They carried him very gently along the fields, and 
down the lanes, and over the wide landscape ; Rachael 
always holding the hand in hers. Very few whispers 
broke the mournful silence. It was soon a funeral pro- 
cession. The star had shown him where to find the God 
of the poor ; and through humility, and sorrow, and for- 
giveness, he had gone to his Redeemer’s rest. 


32 


HARD TIMES. 


CHAPTER VII. 

WHELP-HUNTING. 

Before the ring formed round the Old Hell Shaft 
was broken, one figure had disappeared from within it. 
Mr. Bounderby and his shadow had not stood near 
Louisa, who held her father’s arm, but in a retired place 
by themselves. When Mr. Gradgrind was summoned to 
the couch, Sissy, attentive to all that happened, slipped 
behind that wicked shadow — a sight in the horror of 
his face, if there had been eyes there for any sight but 
one — and whispered in his ear. Without turning his 
head, he conferred with her a few moments, and van- 
ished. Thus the whelp had gone out of the circle before 
the people moved. 

When the father reached home, he sent a message to 
Mr. Bounderby’s, desiring his son to come to him directly. 
The reply was, that Mr. Bounderby having missed him 
in the crowd, and seeing nothing of him since, had sup- 
posed him to be at Stone Lodge. 

“I believe, father,” said Louisa, “he will not come 
back to town to-night.” Mr. Gradgrind turned away, 
and said no more. 

In the morning, he went down to the Bank himself as 
soon as it was opened, and seeing his son’s place empty 
(he had not the courage to look in at first), went back 
along the street to meet Mr. Bounderby on his way 


HARD TIMES. 


33 


there. To whom he said that, for reasons he would soon 
explain, but entreated not then to be asked for, he had 
found it necessary to employ his son at a distance for a 
little while. Also, that he was charged with the duty 
of vindicating Stephen Blackpool’s memory, and declar- 
ing the thief. Mr. Bounderby quite confounded, stood 
stock-still in the street after his father-in-law had left 
him, swelling like an immense soap-bubble, without its 
beauty. 

Mr. Gradgrind went home, locked himself in his room, 
and kept it all that day. When Sissy and Louisa tapped 
at his door, he said, without opening it, “ Not now, my 
dears ; in the evening.” On their return in the evening, 
he said, “ I am not able yet — to-morrow.” He ate noth- 
ing all day, and had no candle after dark ; and they heard 
him walking to and fro late at night. 

But, in the morning he appeared at breakfast at the 
usual hour, and took his usual place at the table. Aged 
and bent he looked, and quite bowed down ; and yet he 
looked a wiser man, and a better man, than in the days 
when in this life he wanted nothing but Facts. Be- 
fore he left the room, he appointed a time for them to 
come to him ; and so, with his gray head drooping, went 
away. 

“ Dear father,” said Louisa, when they kept their ap- 
pointment, “ you have three young children left. They 
will be different, I will be different yet, with Heaven’s 
help.” 

She gave her hand to Sissy, as if she meant with liei 
help too. 

“ Your wretched brother,” said Mr. Gradgrind. u Do 
you think he had planned this robbery, when he went 
with you to the lodging ? ” 

VOL. Ti. 3 


34 


HARD TIMES. 


“ I fear so, father. I know he had wanted money very 
much, and had spent a great deal.” 

“ The poor man being about to leave the town, it came 
into his evil brain to cast suspicion on him ? ” 

“ I think it must have flashed upon him while he sat 
there, father. For, I asked him to go there with me. 
The visit did not originate with him.” 

“ He had some conversation with the poor man. Did 
he take him aside ? ” 

“ He took him out of the room. I asked him after- 
wards, why he had done so, and he made a plausible 
excuse ; but since last night, father, and when I remem- 
ber the circumstances by its light, I am afraid I can 
imagine too truly what passed between them.” 

“ Let me know,” said her father, “ if your thoughts 
present your guilty brother in the same dark view as 
mine.” 

“ I fear, father,” hesitated Louisa, “ that he must have 
made some representation to Stephen Blackpool — per- 
haps in my name, perhaps in his own — which induced 
him to do in good faith and honesty, what he had never 
done before, and to wait about the Bank those two or 
three nights before he left the town.” 

66 Too plain ! ” returned the father. “ Too plain ! ” 

He shaded his face, and remained silent for some mo- 
ments. Recovering himself, he said, — 

“ And now, how is he to be found ? How is he to be 

saved from justice ? In the few hours that I can possibly 

. 

allow to elapse before I publish the truth, how is he to 
be found by us, and only by us ? Ten thousand pounds 
ould not effect it.” 

Sissy has effected it, father.” 

He raised his eyes to where she stood, like a good fairy 


HARD TIMES. 


35 


in his house, and said in a tone of softened gratitude and 
grateful kindness, “ It is always you, my child ! ” 

“We had our fears,” Sissy explained, glancing at 
Louisa, “ before yesterday ; and when I saw you brought 
to the side of the litter last night, and heard what passed 
(being close to Rachael all the time), I went to him when 
no one saw, and said to him, ‘ Don’t look at me. See 
where your father is. Escape at once, for his sake and 
your own ! ’ He was in a tremble before I whispered . 
to him, and he started and trembled more then, and said, 

‘ Where can I go ? I have very little money, and I don’t 
know who will hide me ! ’ I thought of father’s old 
circus. I have not forgotten where Mr. Sleary goes at 
this time of year, and I read of him in a paper only the 
other day. I told him tv. hurry there, and tell his name, 
and ask Mr. Sleary to hide him till I came. ‘ I’ll get to 
him before the morning,’ he said. And I saw him shrink 
away among the people.” 

“ Thank Heaven ! ” exclaimed his father. “ He may 
be got abroad yet.” 

It was the more hopeful as the town to which Sissy 
had directed him was within three hours’ journey of 
Liverpool, whence he could be swiftly dispatched to any 
part of the world. But, caution being necessary in com- 
municating with him — for there was a greater danger 
every moment of his being suspected now, and nobody 
could be sure at heart but that Mr. Bounderby himself, 
in a bullying vein of public zeal, might play a Roman 
part — it was consented that Sissy and Louisa should 
repair to the place in question, by a circuitous course, 
alone ; and that the unhappy father, setting forth in an 
opposite direction, should get round to the same bourn 
by another and wider route. It was further agreed that 


36 


HARD TIMES. 


t 

he should not present himself to Mr. Sleary, lest his 
intentions should be mistrusted, or the intelligence of his 
arrival should cause his son to take flight anew ; but, 
that the communication should be left to Sissy and 
Louisa to open ; and that they should inform the cause 
of so much misery and disgrace, of his father’s being 
at hand and of the purpose for which they had come. 
When these arrangements had been well considered and 
were fully understood by all three, it was time to begin 
to carry them into execution. Early in the afternoon, 
Mr. Gradgrind walked direct from his own house into 
the country, to be taken up on the line by which he 
was to travel ; and at night the remaining two set forth 
upon their different course, encouraged by not seeing any 
face they knew. 

The two travelled all night, except when they were 
left, for odd numbers of minutes, at branch-places up 
illimitable flights of steps, or down wells — which was 
the only variety of those branches — and, early in the 
morning, were turned out on a swamp, a mile or two 
from the town they sought. From this dismal spot they 
were rescued by a savage old postilion, who happened to 
be up early, kicking a horse in a fly; and so were smug- 
gled into the town by all the back lanes where the pigs 
lived : which, although not a magnificent or even savory 
approach, was, as is usual in such cases, the legitimate 
highway. 

The first thing they saw on entering the town was the 
skeleton of Sleary’s Circus. The company had departed 
for another town more than twenty miles off, and had 
opened there last night. The connection between the 
two places was by a hilly turnpike-road, and the travel- 
ling on that road was very slow. Though they took but 


HARD TIMES. 


37 


a hasty breakfast, and no rest (which it would have been 
in vain to seek under such anxious circumstances), it was 
noon before they began to find the bills of Sleary’s Horse- 
riding on barns and walls, and one o’clock when they 
stopped in the market-place. 

A Grand Morning Performance by the Riders, com- 
mencing at that very hour, was in course of announce- 
ment by the bellman as they set their feet upon the 
stones of the street. Sissy recommended that, to avoid 
making inquiries and attracting attention in the town, 
they should present themselves to pay at the door. If 
Mr. Sleary were taking the money, he would be sure to 
know her, and would proceed with discretion. If he 
were not, he would be sure to see them inside ; and, 
knowing what he had done with the fugitive, would pro- 
ceed with discretion still. 

Therefore, they repaired, with fluttering hearts, to the 
well-remembered booth. The flag with the inscription 
Sleary’s Horseriding, was there ; and the Gothic 
niche was there ; but Mr. Sleary was not there. Master 
Kidderminster, grown too maturely turfy to be received 
by the wildest credulity as Cupid any more, had yielded 
to the invincible force of circumstances (and his beard), 
and, in the capacity of a man who made himself generally 
useful, presided on this occasion over the exchequer — 
having also a drum in reserve, on which to expend his 
leisure moments and superfluous forces. In the extreme 
sharpness of his look-out for base coin, Mr. Kidder- 
minster, as at present situated, never saw anything but 
money ; so Sissy passed him unrecognized, and they 
went in. 

The Emperor of Japan, on a steady old white horse 
stencilled with black spots, was twirling five wash-hand 


88 


HARD TIMES. 


basins at once, as it is the favorite recreation of that 
monarch to do. Sissy, though well acquainted with his 
Royal line, had no personal knowledge of the present 
Emperor, and his reign was peaceful. Miss Josephine 
Sleary, in her celebrated graceful Equestrian Tyrolean 
Flower- Act, was then announced by a new clown (who 
humorously said Cauliflower Act), and Mr. Sleary ap- 
peared, leading her in. 

Mr. Sleary had only made one cut at the Clown with 
his long whip-lash, and the Clown had only said, “ If you 
do it again, I’ll throw the horse at you ! ” when Sissy 
was recognized both by father and daughter. But they 
got through the Act with great self-possession ; and Mr. 
Sleary, saving for the first instant, conveyed no more 
expression into his locomotive eye than into his fixed 
one. The performance seemed a little long to Sissy and 
Louisa, particularly when it stopped to afford the Clown 
an opportunity of telling Mr. Sleary (who said “ Indeed, 
sir ! ” to all his observations in the calmest way, and with 
his eye on the house) about two legs sitting on three legs 
looking at one leg, when in came four legs, and laid hold 
of one leg, and up got two legs, caught hold of three 
legs, and threw ’em at four legs, who ran away with one 
leg. For, although an ingenious Allegory relating to a 
butcher, a three-legged stool, a dog, and a leg of mutton, 
this narrative consumed time ; and they were in great 
suspense. At last, however, little fair-liaired Josephine 
made her courtesy amid great applause ; and the Clown, 
left alone in the ring, had just warmed himself, and said, 
“ Now /’ll have a turn ! ” when Sissy was touched on 
the shoulder, and beckoned out. 

She took Louisa with her ; and they were received 
by Mr. Sleary in a very little private apartment, with 


HARD TIMES. 


39 


canvas sides, a grass floor, and a wooden ceiling all 
aslant, on which the box company stamped their appro- 
bation, as if they were coming through. “ Thethilia,” 
said Mr. Sleary, who had brandy and water at hand, “ it 
doth me good to thee you. You wath alwayth a favorite 
with uth, and you’ve done uth credith thinth the old 
timeth I’m thure. You mutht thee our people, my dear, 
afore we thpeak of bithnith, or they’ll break their hearth 

— ethpethially the women. Here’th Jothphine hath been 
and got married to E. W. B. Childerth, and thee hath 
got a boy, and though he’th only three yearth old, he 
thtickth on to any pony you can bring again tht him. 
He’th named The Little Wonder Of Thcolathtic Equi- 
tation ; and if you don’t hear of that boy at Athley’th, 
you’ll hear of him at Parith. And you recollect Kidder- 
minthter, that wath thought to be rather thweet upon 
yourthelf? Well. He’th married too. Married a 
widder. Old enough to be hith mother. Thee wath 
Tightrope, thee wath, and now thee’th nothing — on 
accounth of fat. They’ve got two children, tho we’re 
thtrong in the Fairy bithnith and the Nurthery dodge. 
If you wath to thee our Children in the Wood, with 
their father and mother both a-dyin’ on a horthe — their 
uncle a rethieving of ’em ath hith wardth, upon a horthe, 

— themthelvth both a-goin’ a-blackberryin’ on a horthe — 
and the Robinth a-coming in to cover ’em with leavth, 
upon a horthe — you’d tliay it wath the completetht 
thing ath ever you thet your eyeth on ! And you remem- 
ber Emma Gordon, my dear, ath wath a’motht a mother 
to you ? Of courthe you do ; I needn’t athk. Well ! 
Emma, thee lotht her huthband. He wath throw’d a 
heavy back-fall off a Elephant in a thort of a Pagoda 
thing ath the Thultan of the Indieth, and he never got 


40 


HARD TIMES. 


the better of it ; and thee married a thecond time — 
married a Cheethemonger ath fell in love with her from 
the front — and he’th a Overtheer and makin’ a fortun.” 

These various changes, Mr. Sleary, very short of breath 
now, related with great heartiness, and with a wonderful 
kind of innocence, considering what a bleary and brandy - 
and-watery old veteran he was. Afterwards he brought 
in Josephine, and E. W. B. Childers (rather deeply-lined 
in the jaws by daylight), and The Little Wonder of Scho- 
lastic Equitation, and in a word, all the company. Amaz- 
ing creatures they were in Louisa’s eyes, so white and 
pink of complexion, so scant of dress, and so demonstrative 
of leg ; but it w r as very agreeable to see them crowding 
about Sissy, and very natural in Sissy to be unable to 
refrain from tears. 

“ There ! Now Thetliilia hath kithd all the children, 
and hugged all the women, and thaken handth all round 
with all the men, clear, every one of you, and ring in the 
band for the thecond part ! ” 

As soon as they were gone, he continued in a low 
tone, “ Now, Thetliilia, I don’t athk to know any the- 
creth, but I thuppose I may conthider tliith to be Mith 
Thquire.” 

“ This is his sister. Yes.” 

“ And t’other on’th daughter. That’ll what I mean. 
Hope I thee you well, mith. And I hope the Thquire’th 
well ? ” 

“ My father will be here soon,” said Louisa, anxious 
to bring him to the point. “ Is my brother safe ? ” 

“ Thafe and thound ! ” he replied. “ I want you jutht 
to take a peep at the Bing, mith, through here. The- 
thilia, you know the dodge th find a thpy-hole for your- 
thelf.” 


HARD TIMES. 


41 


They each looked through a chink in the hoards. 

“ That’h Jack the Giant Killer — piethe of comic 
infant bithnith,” said Sleary. “ There’th a property- 
houtlie, you thee, for Jack to hide in ; there’th my 
Clown with a thauthepan-lid and a thpit, for Jack’th 
thervant; there’th little Jack himthelf in a thplendid 
thoot of armor ; there’th two comic black thervanth 
twithe ath big ath the houthe, to thtand by it and to 
bring it in and clear it ; and the Giant (a very echth- 
penthive bathket one), he a’n’t on yet. Now, do you 
thee ’em all ? ” 

“ Yes,” they both said. 

“ Look at ’em again,” said Sleary, “ look at ’em well. 
You thee ’em all ? Very good. Now, mith ; ” he put a 
form for them to sit on ; “I have my opinionth, and the 
Thquire your father hath hitli. I don’t want to know 
what your brother’th been up to ; ith better for me not 
to know. All I thay ith, the Thquire hath thtood by 
Thethilia, and I’ll thtand by the Thquire. Your brother 
ith one o’ them black thervanth.” 

Louisa uttered an exclamation, partly of distress, partly 
of satisfaction. 

“ Ith a fact,” said Sleary, “ and even knowin’ it, you 
couldn’t put your finger on him. Let the Thquire come. 
I thall keep your brother here after the performanth. I 
thant undreth him, nor yet wath hith paint off. Let the 
Thquire come here after the performanth, or come here 
yourthelf after the performanth, and you thall find your 
brother, and have the whole plathe to talk to him in. 
Never mind the lookth of him, ath long ath he’th well 
hid.” 

Louisa, with many thanks and with a lightened load, 
detained Mr. Sleary no longer then. She left her love 


42 


HARD TIMES. 


for her brother, with her eyes full of tears ; and she and 
Sissy went away until later in the afternoon. 

Mr. Gradgrind arrived within an hour afterwards. 
He too had encountered no one whom he knew ; and 
was now sanguine with Sleary’s assistance, of getting his 
disgraced son to Liverpool in the night. As neither of 
the three could be his companion without almost identify- 
ing him under any disguise, he prepared a letter to a 
correspondent whom he could trust, beseeching him to 
ship the bearer off at any cost, to North or South Amer- 
ica, or any distant part of the world to which he could 
be the most speedily and privately dispatched. 

This done, they walked about,' waiting for the Circus 
to be quite vacated : not only by the audience, but by 
the company and by the horses. After watching it a 
long time, they saw Mr. Sleary bring out a chair and sit 
down by the side-door, smoking ; as if that were his 
signal that they might approach. 

“ Your thervant, Thquire,” was his cautious salutation 
as they passed in. “If you want me you’ll find me 
here. You muthn’t mind your tlion having a comic 
livery on.” 

They all three went in ; and Mr. Gradgrind sat down 
forlorn, on the Clown’s performing chair in the middle 
of the ring. On one of the back benches, remote in the 
subdued light and the strangeness of the place, sat the 
villanous whelp, sulky to the last, whom he had the 
misery to call his son. 

In a preposterous coat, like a beadle’s, with cuffs and 
flaps exaggerated to an unspeakable extent ; in an im- 
mense waistcoat, knee-breeches, buckled shoes, and a 
mad cocked hat ; with nothing fitting him, and every- 
thing of coarse material, moth-eaten, and full of holes ; 


HARD TIMES. 


43 


with seams in his black face, where fear and heat had 
started through the greasy composition daubed all over 
it ; anything so grimly, detestably, ridiculously shameful 
as the whelp in his comic livery, Mr. Gradgrind never 
could by any other means have believed in, weighable 
and measurable fact though it was. And one of his 
model children had come to this ! 

At first the whelp would not draw any nearer, but 
persisted in remaining up there by himself. Yielding at 
length, if any concession so sullenly made can be called 
yielding, to the entreaties of Sissy — for Louisa he dis- 
owned altogether — he came down, bench by bench, until 
he stood in the sawdust, on the verge of the circle, as far 
as possible, within its limits from where his father sat. 

“ How was this done ? ” asked the father. 

“ How was what done ? ” moodily answered the son. 

“ This robbery,” said the father, raising his voice upon 
the word. 

“ I forced the safe myself over night, and shut it up 
ajar before I went away. I had had the key that was 
found, made long before. I dropped it that morning, that 
it might be supposed to have been used. I didn’t take 
the money all at once. I pretended to put my balance 
away every night, but I didn’t. Now you know all about 
it.” 

“ If a thunderbolt had fallen on me,” said the father, 
“ it would have shocked me less than this ! ” 

“ I don’t see why,” grumbled the son. “ So many 
people are employed in situations of trust ; so many 
people, out of so many, will be dishonest. I have heard 
you talk, a hundred times, of its being a law. How can 
I help laws ? Y r ou have comforted others with such 
things, father. Comfort yourself ! ” 


44 


HARD TIMES. 


The father buried his face in his hands, and the son 
stood in his disgraceful grotesqueness, biting straw : his 
hands, with the black partly worn away inside, looking 
like the hands of a monkey. The evening was fast clos- 
ing in ; and from time to time, he turned the whites of 
his eyes restlessly and impatiently towards his father. 
They were the only parts of his face that showed any 
life or expression, the pigment upon it was so thick. 

“ You must be got to Liverpool, and sent abroad.” 

“ I suppose I must. I can’t be more miserable any- 
where,” whimpered the whelp, “ than I have been here, 
ever since I can remember. That’s one thing.” 

Mr. Gradgrind went to the door, and returned with 
Sleary, to whom he submitted the question, How to get 
this deplorable object away ? 

“ Why, I’ve been thinking of it, Thquire. There’th 
not muth time to lothe, tho you muth thay yeth or no. 
Ith over twenty mileth to the rail. Thereth a coath in 
half an hour, that goeth to the rail, purpothe to cath the 
mail train. That train will take him right to Liver- 
pool.” 

“ But look at him,” groaned Mr. Gradgrind. “ Will 
any coach — ” 

“ I don’t mean that he thould go in the comic livery,” 
said Sleary. “Thay the word, and I’ll make a Jothkin 
of him, out of the wardrobe, in five minutes.” 

“ I don’t understand,” said Mr. Gradgrind. 

“ A Jothkin — a Carter. Make up your mind quick, 
Thquire. There’ll be beer to feth. I’ve never met with 
nothing but beer ath’ll ever clean a comic blackamoor.” 
Mr. Gradgrind rapidly assented ; Mr. Sleary rapidly 
turned out from a box, a smock frock, a felt hat, and 
other essentials ; the whelp rapidly changed clothes be- 


HARD TIMES. 


45 


hind a screen of baize ; Mr. Sleary rapidly brought beer, 
and washed him white again. 

“Now,” said Sleary, “ come along to the coath, and 
jump up behind ; I’ll go with you there, and they’ll 
thuppothe you one of my people. Thay farewell to 
your family, and tharp’th the word.” With which he 
delicately retired. 

“ Here is your letter,” said Mr. Gradgrind. “ All 
necessary means will be provided for you. Atone, by 
repentance and better conduct, for the shocking action 
you have committed, and the dreadful consequences to 
which it has led. Give me your hand, my poor boy, and 
may God forgive you as I do ! ” 

The culprit was moved to a few abject tears by these 
words and their pathetic tone. But, when Louisa open- 
ed her arms, he repulsed her afresh. 

“ Not you. I don’t want to have anything to say to 
you ! ” 

“ O Tom, Tom, do we end so, after all my love ! ” 

“ After all your love ! ” he returned, obdurately. 

Pretty love ! Leaving old Bounderby to himself, and 
packing my best friend Mr. Harthouse off, and going 
home just when I was in the greatest danger. Pretty 
love that ! Coming out with every word about our hav- 
ing gone to that place, when you saw the net was gather- 
ing round me. Pretty love that ! You have regularly 
given me up. You never cared for me.” 

“ Tharp’th the word ! ” said Sleary at the door. 

They all confusedly went out : Louisa crying to him 
that she forgave him, and loved him still, and that he 
would one day be sorry to have left her so, and glad to 
think of these her last word* far away : when some one 
ran against them. Mr. Gradgrind and Sissy, who were 


46 


HARD TIMES. 


both before him while his sister yet clung to his shoulder 
stopped and recoiled. 

For, there was Bitzer, out of breath, his thin lips 
parted, his thin nostrils distended, his white eyelashes 
quivering, his colorless face more colorless than ever, as 
if he ran himself into a white heat, when other people ran 
themselves into a glow. There he stood, panting and 
heaving, as if he had never stopped since the night, now 
long ago, when he had run them down before. 

“ I’m sorry to interfere with your plans,” said Bitzer, 
shaking his head, “ but I can’t allow myself to be done by 
horseriders. I must have young Mr. Tom ; he mustn’t 
be got away by horseriders ; here he is in a smock frock, 
and I must have him ! ” 

By the collar, too, it seemed. For, so he took posses 
Bion of him. 


HARD TIMES. 


47 


CHAPTER VIII. 

PHILOSOPHICAL. 

They went back into the booth, Sleary shutting the 
door to keep intruders out. Bitzer, still holding the par- 
alyzed culprit by the collar, stood in the Ring, blinking 
at his old patron through the darkness of the twilight. 

“ Bitzer,’’ said Mr. Gradgrind, broken down, and mis- 
erably submissive to him, “ have you a heart ? ” 

“ The circulation sir,” returned Bitzer, smiling at the 
oddity of the question, “ couldn’t be carried on without 
one. No man, sir, acquainted with the facts established 
by Harvey relating to the circulation of the blood, can 
doubt that I have a heart.” 

“ Is it accessible,” cried Mr. Gradgrind, “ to any com- 
passionate influence ? ” 

“ It is accessible to Reason, sir,” returned the excellent 
young man. “ And to nothing else.” 

They stood looking at each other; Mr. Gradgrind’s 
face as white as the pursuer’s. 

“ What motive — even what motive in reason — can 
you have for preventing the escape of this wretched 
youth,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “ and crushing his miserable 
father ? See his sister here. Pity us ! ” 

“ Sir,” returned Bitzer, in a very business-like and 
logical manner, “ since you ask me what motive I have in 
reason, for taking young Mr. Tom back to Coketown, it 


48 


HARD TIMES. 


is only reasonable to let you know. I have suspected 
young Mr. Tom of this bank-robbery from the first. I 
had had my eye upon him before that time, for I knew 
his ways. I have kept my observations to myself, but I 
have made them ; and I have got ample proofs against 
him now, besides his running away, and besides his own 
confession, which I was just in time to overhear. I had 
the pleasure of watching your house yesterday morning, 
and following you here. I am going to take young Mr. 
Tom back to Coketown, in order to deliver him over to 
Mr. Bounderby. Sir, I have no doubt whatever that Mr. 
Bounderby will then promote me to young Mr. Tom’s 
situation. And I wish to have his situation, sir, for it 
will be a rise to me, and will do me good.” 

“ If this is solely a question of self-interest with you ” — 
Mr. Gradgrind began. 

“ I beg your pardon for interrupting you, sir,” returned 
Bitzer ; “ but I am sure you know that the whole social 
system is a question of self-interest. What you must 
always appeal to, is a person’s self-interest. It’s your 
only hold. We are so constituted. I was brought up in 
that catechism when I was very young, sir, as you are 
aware.” 

“ What sum of money,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “ will you 
set against your expected promotion ? ” 

“ Thank you, sir,” returned Bitzer, u for hinting at the 
proposal ; but I will not set any sum against it. Know- 
ing that your clear head would propose that alternative, I 
have gone over the calculations in my mind ; and I find 
that to compound a felony, even on very high terms in- 
deed, would not be as safe and good for me as my im- 
proved prospects in the Bank.” 

“ Bitzer,” said Mr. Gradgrind, stretching out his hands 


HARD TIMES. 


49 


as though he would have said, See how miserable I am ! 
“ Bitzer, I have but one chance left to soften you. You 
were many years at my school. If, in remembrance of 
the pains bestowed upon you there, you can persuade 
yourself in any degree to disregard your present inter- 
est and release my son, I entreat and pray you to give 
him the benefit of that remembrance.’’ 

u I really wonder, sir,” rejoined the old pupil in an ar- 
gumentative manner, “ to find you taking a position so 
untenable. My schooling was paid for ; it was a bargain ; 
and when I came away, the bargain ended.” 

It was a fundamental principle of the Gradgrind phi- 
losophy, that everything was to be paid for. Nobody was 
ever on any account to give anybody anything, or render 
anybody any help without purchase. Gratitude was to be 
abolished, and the virtues springing from it were not to 
be. Every inch of the existence of mankind, from birth 
to death, was to be a bargain across a counter. And if 
we didn’t get to Heaven that way, it was not a politico- 
economical place, and we had no business there. 

“ I don’t deny,” added Bitzer, “ that my schooling was 
cheap. But that comes right, sir. I was made in the 
cheapest market, and have to dispose of myself in the 
dearest.” 

He was a little troubled here, by Louisa and Sissy 
crying. 

“ Pray don’t do that,” said he, “ it’s of no use doing 
that : it only worries. You seem to think that I have 
some animosity against young Mr. Tom ; whereas I have 
none at all. I am only going, on the reasonable grounds 
I have mentioned, to take him back to Coketown. If he 
was to resist, I should set up the cry of Stop Thief! 
But, he won’t resist, you may depend upon it.” 

VOL. II. 4 


50 


HARD TIMES. 


Mr. Sleary, who, with his mouth open and his rolling 
eye as immovably jammed in his head as his fixed one, 
had listened to these doctrines with profound attention, 
here stepped forward. 

“ Thquire, you know perfectly well, and your daughter 
knowth perfectly well (better than you, becautlie I thed 
it to her), that I didn’t know what your thon had done, 
and that I didn’t want to know — I thed it wath better 
not, though I only thought, then, it wath thome thky- 
larking. However, tliith young man, having made it 
known to be a robbery of a bank, why, that’ll a tlieriouth 
thing ; muth too tlieriouth a thing for me to compound, 
ath tliith young man had very properly called it. Con- 
thequently, Thquire, you muthn’t quarrel with me if I 
take tliith young man’th thide, and thay he’th right and 
there’th no help for it. But I tell you what I’ll do, 
Thquire ; I’ll drive your thon and tliith young man over 
to the rail, and prevent expothure here. I can’t conthent 
to do more, but I’ll do that.” 

Fresh lamentations from Louisa, and deeper affliction 
on Mr. Gradgrind’s part, followed this desertion of them 
•by their last friend. But, Sissy glanced at him with 
great attention ; nor did she in her own breast misunder- 
stand him. As they were all going out again, he favor- 
ed her with one slight roll of his movable eye, desiring 
her to linger behind. As he locked the door, he said 
excitedly, — 

“ The Thquire thtoodby you, Thetliilia, and I’ll thtand 
by the Thquire. More than that : tliith ith a prethiouth 
rathcal, and belongth to that bluthtering Cove that my 
people nearly pitht out o’ winder. It’ll be a dark night ; 
I’ve got a hortlie that’ll do anything but tlipeak ; I’ve 
got a pony that’ll go fifteen mile an hour with Childerth 


HARD TIMES. 


51 


driving of him ; I’ve got a dog that’ll keep a man to one 
plathe four-and-twenty hourth. Get a word with the 
young Thquire. Tell him, when he theeth our horthe 
begin to danthe, not to be afraid of being thpilt, but tc 
look out for a pony-gig coming up. Tell him, when he 
theeth that gig clothe by, to jump down, and it’ll take 
him off at a rattling pathe. If my dog leth thith young 
man thtir a peg on foot, I give him leave to go. And if 
my horthe ever thtirth from that thpot where he beginth 
a dan thing, till the morning — I don’t know him ? — 
Tharp’th the word ! ” 

The word, was so sharp, that in ten minutes Mr. Chil- 
ders, sauntering about the market-place in a pair of slip- 
pers, had his cue, and Mr. Sleary’s equipage was ready. 
It was a fine sight, to behold the learned dog barking 
round it, and Mr. Sleary instructing him, with his one 
practicable eye, that Bitzer was the object of his particu- 
lar attentions. Soon after dark they all three got in and 
started ; the learned dog (a formidable creature) already 
pinning Bitzer with his eye, and sticking close to the 
wheel on his side, that he might be ready for him in the 
event of his showing the slightest disposition to alight. 

The other three sat up at the inn all night in great 
suspense. At eight o’clock in the morning Mr. Sleary 
and the dog reappeared : both in high spirits. 

“ All right, Thquire ! ” said Mr. Sleary, “ your thon 
may be aboard-a-thip by thith time. Childerth took him 
off, an hour and a half after we left here latlit night. 
The horthe danthed the polka till he wath dead beat (he 
would have walthed, if he hadn’t been in harneth), and 
then I gave him the word and he went to thleep com- 
fortable. When that prethiouth young Rathcal thed he’d 
go for’ard afoot, the dog hung on to hith neck-hankercher 


52 


HARD TIMES. 


with all four legth in the air and pulled him down and 
rolled him over. Tho he come back into the drag, and 
there he that, ’till I turned the liorthe’th head, at half- 
patht thixth thith morning.” 

Mr. Gradgrind overwhelmed him with thanks, of 
course ; and hinted as delicately as he could, at a hand- 
some remuneration in money. 

“ I don’t want money mythelf, Thquire ; but Childerth 
ith a family man, and if you wath to like to offer him a 
five-pound note, it mightn’t be unacceptable. Likewithe 
if you wath to thand a collar for the dog, or a thet of 
bellth for the horthe, I thould be very glad to take ’em. 
Brandy and water I alwayth take.” He had already 
called for a glass, and now called for another. “ If you 
wouldn’t think it going too far, Thquire, to make a little 
thpread for the company at about three and thixth ahead, 
not reckoning Luth, it would make ’em happy.” 

All these little tokens of his gratitude, Mr. Gradgrind 
very willingly undertook to render. Though he thought 
them far too slight, he said, for such a service. 

“Very well, Thquire; then, if you’ll only give a 
Horthe-riding, a bethpeak, whenever you can, you’ll 
more than balanthe the account. Now, Thquire, if your 
daughter will ethcuthe me, I thould like one parting w r ord 
with you.” 

Louisa and Sissy withdrew into an adjoining room ; 
Mr. Sleary, stirring and drinking his brandy and water 
as he stood, went on : 

“ Thquire, you don’t need to be told that dogth ith won- 
derful animalth.” 

“ Their instinct,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “ is surprising.” 

“ Whatever you call it — and I’m bletht if I know 
what to call it ” — said Sleary, “ it ith athtonithing. The 


HARD TIMES. 


53 


way in whith a dog’ll find you — the dithtanthe he’ll 
o.ome ! ” 

“ His scent,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “ being so fine.” 

“ I’m bletht if I know what to call it,” repeated Sleary, 
shaking his head, “ but I have had dogth find me, 
Thquire, in a way that made me think whether that dog 
hadn’t gone to another dog, and thed, 6 You don’t happen 
to know a perthon of the name of Thleary, do you ? 
Perthon of the name of Thleary, in the Horthe-Riding 
way — thtout man — game eye ? 9 And whether that dog 
mightn’t have thed, 4 Well, I can’t thay I know him my- 
thelf, but I know a dog that I think would be likely to 
be acquainted with him.’ And whether that dog mightn’t 
have thought it over, and thed, 4 Thleary, Thleary ! O 
yeth, to be thure ! A friend of mine menthioned him to 
me at one time. I can get you hith addreth directly.’ 
In conthequenth of my being afore the public, and going 
about tho muth, you thee, there mutht be a number of 
dogth acquainted with me, Thquire, that 1 don’t know ! ” 

Mr. Gradgrind seemed to be quite confounded by this 
speculation. 

“ Any way,” said Sleary, after putting his lips to his 
brandy and water, “ ith fourteen month ago, Thquire, 
thinthe we wath at Chethter. We wath getting up our 
Children in the Wood one morning, when there cometh 
into our Ring, by the thtage door, a dog. He had trav- 
elled a long way, he wath in very bad condithon, he watl 
lame, and pretty well blind. He went round to our chil 
dren, one after another, as if he wath a-theeking for a 
child he know’d ; and then he come to me, and throwd 
hithelf up behind, and thtood on hith two fore-legth, 
weak ath he wath, and then he wagged hith tail and died. 
Thquire, that dog wath Merrylegth.” 


54 


HARD TIMES. 


“ Sissy’s father’s dog ! ” 

“ Thethilia’th father’th old dog. Now, Thquire, I can 
take my oath, from my knowledge of that dog, that that 
man wath dead — and buried — afore that dog come 
back to me. Joth’phine and Childerth and me talked it 
over a long time, whether I thould write or not. But 
we agreed, c No. There’th nothing comfortable to tell 5 
why unthettle her mind, and make her unhappy ? ’ Tho, 
whether her father bathely detherted her ; or whether 
he broke hitli own heart alone, rather than pull her 
down along with him ; never will be known, now, 
Thquire, till — no, not till we know how the dogth findth 
uth out ! ” 

u She keeps the bottle that he sent her for, to this 
hour ; and she will believe in his affection to the last 
moment of her life,” said Mr. Gradgrind. 

“ It theemth to prethent two thingth to a perthon, 
don’t it, Thquire ? ” said Mr. Sleary, musing as he looked 
down into the depths of his brandy and water : “ one, that 
there ith a love in the world, not all Thelf-interetht after 
all, but thomething very different ; t’other, that it hath a 
way of ith own of calculating or not calculating, whith 
thomehow or another ith at leatht ath hard to give a 
name to, ath the wayth of the dogth ith ! ” 

Mr. Gradgrind looked out of window, and made no 
reply. Mr. Sleary emptied his glass and recalled the 
ladies. 

“ Thetliilia my dear, kith me and good-by ! Mith 
Thquire, to thee you treating of her like a thithter, and 
a thithter that you trutlit and honor with all your heart 
and more, ith a very pretty thight to me. I hope your 
brother may live to be better detherving of you, and a 
greater comfort to you. Thquire, thake hands, firtht and 


HARD TIMES. 


55 


latht ! Don’t be eroth with uth poor vagabondth. Peo- 
ple mutht be amuthed. They can’t be alwayth a learn- 
ing, nor yet they can’t be alwayth a working, they a’n’t 
made for it. You mutht have uth, Thquire. Do the 
withe thing and the kind thing too, and make the bethfc 
of uth ; not the wurtht ! 

“ And I never thought before,” said Mr. Sleary, put- 
ting his head in at the door again to say it, “ that I wath 
tho muth of a Cackler ! ” 


56 


HARD TIMES. 


CHAPTER IX. 

FINAL. 

It is a dangerous thing to see anything in the sphere 
of a vain blusterer, before the vain blusterer sees it him- 
self. Mr. Bounderby felt that Mrs. Sparsit had auda- 
ciously anticipated him, and presumed to be wiser than 
he. Inappeasably indignant with her for her triumph- 
ant discovery of Mrs. Pegler, he turned this presump- 
tion, on the part of a woman in her dependent position, 
over and over in his mind, until it accumulated with turn- 
ing like a great snowball. At last he made the discovery 
that to discharge this highly connected female — to have 
it in his power to say, “ She was a woman of family, and 
wanted to stick to me, but I wouldn’t have it, and got 
rid of her ” — would be to get the utmost possible 
amount of crowning glory out of the connection, and at 
the same time to punish Mrs. Sparsit according to her 
deserts. 

Filled fuller than ever, with this great idea, Mr 
Bounderby came in to lunch, and sat himself down ir 
he dining-room of former days, where his portrait was 
Mrs. Sparsit sat by the fire, with her foot in her cottoi j 
stirrup, little thinking whither she was posting. 

Since the Pegler affair, this gentlewoman had covered 
her pity for Mr. Bounderby with a veil of quiet melan- 
choly and contrition. In virtue thereof, it had become 


HARD TIMES. 


57 


her habit to assume a woful look ; which woful look she 
now bestowed upon her patron. 

“ What’s the matter now, ma’am ? ” said Mr. Boun- 
derby, in a very short, rough way. 

“ Pray, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, “ do not bite my 
nose off.” 

“ Bite your nose off, ma’am ! ” repeated Mr. Bounderby. 
“ Your nose ! ” meaning, as Mrs. Sparsit conceived, that 
it was too developed a nose for the purpose. After 
which offensive implication, he cut himself a crust of 
bread, and threw the knife down with a noise. 

Mrs. Sparsit took her foot out of her stirrup, and said, 
“ Mr. Bounderby, sir ! ” 

“Well, ma’am?” retorted Mr. Bounderby. “What 
are your staring at ? ” 

“ May I ask, sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit, “ have you been 
ruffled this morning? 

“ Yes, ma’am.” ^ 

“ May I inquire, sir,” pursued the injured woman, 
“ whether I am the unfortunate cause of your having lost 
your temper ? ” 

“ Now, I’ll tell you what, ma’am,” said Bounderby, “ I 
am not come here to be bullied. A female may be highly 
connected, but she can’t be permitted to bother and 
badger a man in my position, and I am not going to put 
up with, it.” (Mr. Bounderby felt it necessary to get 
on ; foreseeing that if he allowed of details, he would be 
beaten.) 

Mrs. Sparsit first elevated, then knitted, her Coriola- 
nian eyebrows ; gathered up her work into its proper 
basket ; and rose. 

“ Sir,” said she, majestically. “ It is apparent to me 
ihat I am in your way at present. I will retire to my 
own apartment.” 


58 


HARD TIMES. 


“ Allow me to open the door, ma’am.” 

“ Thank you, sir ; I can do it for myself.” 

“You had better allow me, ma’am,” said Bounderby, 
passing her, and getting his hand upon the lock ; “ be- 
cause I can take the opportunity of saying a word to 
you, before you go. Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am, I rather think 
you are cramped here, do you know ? It appears to me, 
that, under my humble roof, there’s hardly opening 
enough for a lady of your genius in other people’s 
affairs.” 

Mrs. Sparsit gave him a look of the darkest scorn, and 
said with great politeness, “ Really, sir ? ” 

“ I have been thinking it over, you see, since the late 
affairs have happened, ma’am,” said Bounderby ; “ and it 
appears to my poor judgment ” — 

“ Oh ! Pray, sir,” Mrs. Sparsit interposed, with 
sprightly cheerfulness, “ don’t disparage your judgment. 
Everybody knows how unerring Mr. Bounderby’s judg- 
ment is. Everybody has had proofs of it. It must be 
the theme of general conversation. Disparage anything 
in yourself but your judgment, sir,” said Mrs. Sparsit, 

laughing. 

© © 

Mr. Bounderby, very red and uncomfortable, resumed : 
“ It appears to me, ma’am, I say, that a different sort 
of establishment altogether, would bring out a lady of 
your powers. Such an establishment as your relation, 
Lady Scadgers’s, now. Don’t you think you might find 
some affairs there, ma’am, to interfere with ? ” 

“ It never occurred to me before, sir,” returned Mrs. 
Sparsit; “but now you mention it, I should think it 
highly probable.” 

“ Then suppose you try, ma’am,” said Bounderby, lay- 
ing an envelope, with a check in it, in her little basket. 


HARD TIMES. 


! 
f 

“ You can take your own time for going, ma’am ; but 
perhaps in the meanwhile, it will be more agreeable to a 
lady of your powers of mind, to eat her meals by her- 
self, and not to be intruded upon. I really ought to 
apologize to you — being only Josiah Bounderby of 
Coketown — for having stood in your light so long.” 

“ Pray don’t name it, sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit. “ If 
that portrait could speak, sir, — but it has the advantage 
over the original of not possessing the power of com- 
mitting itself and disgusting others, — it would testify, 
that a long period has elapsed since I first habitually 
addressed it as the picture of a Noodle. Nothing 
that a Noodle does, can awaken surprise or indigna- 
tion ; the proceedings of a Noodle can only inspire con- 
tempt.” 

Thus saying, Mrs. Sparsit, with her Roman features 
like a medal struck to commemorate her scorn of Mr. 
Bounderby, surveyed him fixedly from head to foot, 
swept disdainfully past him, and ascended the staircase. 
Mr. Bounderby closed the door, and stood before the fire ; 
projecting himself after his old explosive manner into 
his portrait — and into futurity. 

Into how much of futurity ? He saw Mrs. Sparsit 
fighting out a daily fight, at the points of all the weapons 
in the female armory, with the grudging, smarting, peev- 
*sh, tormenting Lady Scadgers, still laid up in bed with 
her mysterious leg, and gobbling her insufficient income 
down by about the middle of every quarter, in a mean 
little airless lodging, a mere closet for one, a mere crib 
for two ; but did he see more ? Did he catch any glimpse 
of himself making a show of Bitzer to strangers, as the 
rising young man, so devoted to his master’s great merits. 


HARD TIMES. 


) 

who had won young Tom’s place, and had almost cap- 
tured young Tom himself, in the times when by various 
rascals he was spirited away ? Did he see any faint re- 
flection of his own image making a vain-glorious will, 
whereby five-and-twenty Humbugs, past five-and-fifty 
years of age, each taking upon himself the name, Josiali 
Bounderby of Coketown, should forever dine in Boun 
derby Hall, forever lodge in Bounderby Buildings, for- 
ever attend a Bounderby chapel, forever go to sleej) 
under a Bounderby chaplain, forever be supported out 
of a Bounderby estate, and forever nauseate all healthy 
stomachs, with a vast amount of Bounderby balderdash 
and bluster ? Had he any prescience of the day, five 
years to come, when Josiah Bounderby of Coketown was 
to die of a fit in the Coketown street, and this same 
precious will was to begin its long career of quibble, 
plunder, false pretences, vile example, little service and 
much law ? Probably not. Yet the portrait was to see 
it all out. 

Here was Mr. Gradgrind on the same day, and in the 
same hour, sitting thoughtful in his own room. How 
much of futurity did he see ? Did he see himself, a 
white-haired decrepit man, bending his hitherto inflex- 
ible theories to appointed circumstances ; making his 
facts and figures subservient to Faith, Hope, and Char- 
ity ; and no longer trying to grind iat Heavenly trio in 
his dusty little mills ? Did he catch sight of himself 
therefore much despised by his late political associates . 
Did he see them, in the era of its being quite settled that 
the national dustmen have only to do with one another, 
and owe no duty to an abstraction called a People, 
taunting the honorable gentleman ” ,vith this and with 
that and with what not, five nights a-week, until the 


HARD TIMES. 


61 


small hours of the morning ? Probably he had that 
much foreknowledge knowing his men. 

Here was Louisa on the night of the same day, watch 
ing the fire as in days of yore, though with a gentler 
and a humbler face. How much of the future might 
arise before her vision ? Broadsides in the streets, signed 
with her father’s name, exonerating the late Stephen 
Blackpool, weaver, from misplaced suspicion, and pub- 
lishing the guilt of his own son, with such extenuation 
as his years and temptation (he could not bring himself 
to add, his education) might beseech ; were of the 
Present. So, Stephen Blackpool’s tombstone, with her 
father’s record of his death, was almost of the Present, 
for she knew it was to be. These things she could 
plainly see. But, how much of the Future? 

A working woman, christened Rachael, after a long 
illness once again appearing at the ringing of the Fac- 
tory bell, and passing to and fro at the set hours, among 
the Coketown Hands ; a woman of a pensive beauty, 
always dressed in black, but sweet-tempered and serene, 
and even cheerful ; who, of all the people in the place, 
alone appeared to have compassion on a degraded, 
drunken wretch of her own sex, who was sometimes 
seen in the town secretly begging of her, and crying to 
her ; a woman worl * g, ever working, but content to do 
t, and preferring *o do it as her natural lot, until she 
hould be too old to labor any more ? Did Louisa see 
this ? Such a thing was to be. 

A lonely brother, many thousands of miles away 
writing, on paper blotted with tears, that her words had 
too soon come true, and that all the treasures in the 
vorld would be cheaply bartered for a sight of her dear 


62 


HARD TIMES. 


face ? At length this brother coming nearer home, with 
hope of seeing her, and being delayed by illness ; and 
then a letter, in a strange hand, saying “ he died in hos- 
pital, of fever, such a day, and died in penitence and 
love of you : his last word being your name ? ” Did 
Louisa see these things ? Such things were to be. 

Herself again a wife — a mother — lovingly watchful 
of her children, ever careful that they should have a 
childhood of the mind no less than a childhood of the 
body, as knowing it to be even a more beautiful thing, 
and a possession, any hoarded scrap of which is a bless- 
ing and happiness to the wisest ? Did Louisa see this ? 
Such a thing was never to be. 

But, happy Sissy’s happy children loving her ; all 
children loving her ; she, grown learned in childish lore ; 
thinking no innocent and pretty fancy ever to be de- 
spised ; trying hard to know her humbler fellow-creat- 
ures, and to beautify their lives of machinery and re- 
ality with those imaginative graces and delights, without 
which the heart of infancy will wither up, the sturdiest 
physical manhood will be morally stark death, and the 
plainest national prosperity figures can show, will be the 
Writing on the Wall, — she holding this course as part 
of no fantastic vow, or bond, or brotherhood, or sister- 
hood, or pledge, or covenant, or fancy dress, or fancy 
fair ; but simply as a duty to be done. Did Louisa see 
these things of herself? These things were to be. 

Dear reader ! It rests with you and me, whether, in 
our two fields of action, similar things shall be or not. 
Let them be ! We shall sit with lighter bosoms on 
the hearth, to see the ashes of our fires turn gray and 
cold. 


REPRINTED PIECES. 



LYING AWAKE. 


♦ 

• 

“ My uncle lay with his eyes half closed, and his night- 
cap drawn almost down to his nose. His fancy was al- 
ready wandering, and began to mingle up the present 
scene with the crater of Vesuvius, the French Opera, 
the Coliseum at Rome, Dolly’s Chop-house in London, 
and all the farrago of noted places with which the brain 
of a traveller is crammed ; in a word, he was just fall- 
ing asleep.” 

Thus, that delightful writer, Washington Irving, in 
his Tales of a Traveller. But, it happened to me the 
other night to be lying : not with my eyes half closed, 
but with my eyes wide open ; not with my nightcap 
drawn almost down to my nose, for on sanitary principles 
I never wear a nightcap : but with my hair pitchforked 
and touzled all over the pillow ; not just falling asleep 
by any means, but glaringly, persistently, and obstinately, 
broad awake. Perhaps, with no scientific intention or 
invention, I was illustrating the theory of the Duality 
of the Brain ; perhaps one part of my brain, being wake- 
ful, sat up to watch the other part which was sleepy. 
Be that as it may, something in me was as desirous to 
go to sleep as it possibly could be, but something else in 
me would not go to sleep, and was as obstinate as George 
the Third. 


VOL. II. 


5 


66 


LYING AWAKE. 


Thinking of George the Third — for I devote this 
paper to my train of thoughts as I lay awake : most 
people lying awake sometimes, and having some interest 
in the subject — put me in mind of Benjamin Frank 
lin, and so Benjamin Franklin’s paper on. the art of 
procuring pleasant dreams, which would seem necessarily 
to include the art of going to sleep, came into my head, 
Now, as I often used to read that paper when I was a 
very small boy, and as I recollect everything I read then, 
as perfectly as I forget everything I read now, I quoted 
“ Get out of bed, beat up and turn your pillow, shake 
the bed-clothes well with at least twenty shakes, then 
throw the bed open and leave it to cool ; in the mean 
while, continuing undrest, walk about your chamber. 
When you begin to feel the cold air unpleasant, then 
return to your bed, and you will soon fall asleep, and 
your sleep will be sweet and pleasant.” Not a bit of it ! 
I performed the whole ceremony, and if it were possible 
for me to be more saucer-eyed than I was before, that 
was the only result that came of it. 

Except Niagara. The two quotations from Washing- 
ton Irving and Benjamin Franklin may have put it in 
my head by an American association of ideas ; but there 
I was, and the Horse-shoe Fall was thundering and turn- 
bling in my eyes and ears, and the very rainbows that I 
left upon the spray when I really did last look upon it, 
>vere beautiful to see. The night-light being quite as 
lain, however, and sleep seeming to be many thousand 
miles further off than Niagara, I made up my mind to 
think a little about Sleep ; which I no sooner did than I 
whirled off in spite of myself to Drury Lane Theatre, 
and there saw a great actor and dear friend of mine 
(whom I had been thinking of in the day) playing Mac- 


LYING AWAKE. 


67 


beth, and heard him apostrophizing “ the death of each 
day’s life,” as I have heard him many a time, in the days 
that are gone. 

But, Sleep. I will think about Sleep. I am deter- 
mined to think (this is the way I went on) about Sleep 
I must hold the word Sleep, tight and fast, or I shall b* 
off at a tangent in half a second. I feel myself unac- 
countably straying, already, into Clare Market. Sleep. 
It would be curious, as illustrating the equality of sleep, 
to inquire how many of its phenomena are common to 
all classes, to all degrees of wealth and poverty, to every 
grade of education and ignorance. Here, for example, 
is her Majesty Queen Victoria in her palace, this present 
blessed night, and here is Winking Charley, a sturdy 
vagrant, in one of her Majesty’s jails. Her Majesty has 
fallen, many thousands of times, from that same Tower, 
which 1 claim a right to tumble off now and then. So 
has Winking Charley. Her Majesty in her sleep has 
opened or prorogued Parliament, or has held a Drawing 
Room, attired in some very scanty dress, the deficiencies 
and improprieties of which have caused her great un- 
easiness. I, in my degree, have suffered unspeakable 
agitation of mind from taking the chair at a public 
dinner at the London Tavern in my night-clothes, which 
not all the courtesy of my kind friend and host Mr. 
Bathe could persuade me were quite adapted to the 
occasion. Winking Charley has been repeatedly triec 
in a worse condition. Her Majesty is no stranger to 
vault or firmament, of a sort of floorcloth, with an indis- 
tinct pattern distantly resembling eyes, which occasion- 
ally obtrudes itself on her repose. Neither am I. Nei- 
ther is Winking Charley. It is quite common to all 
three of us to skim along with airy strides a little above 


68 


LYING AWAKE. 


the ground ; also to hold, with the deepest interest, dia- 
logues with various people, all represented by ourselves ; 
and to be at our wit’s end to know what they are going 
to tell us ; and to be indescribably astonished by the 
secrets they disclose. It is probable that we have all 
hree committed murders and hidden bodies. It is pretty 
certain that we have all desperately wanted to cry out, 
and have had no voice ; that we have all gone to the 
play and not been able to get in ; that we have all 
dreamed much more of our youth than of our later 
lives ; that I have lost it ! The thread’s broken. 

And up I go. I, lying here with the night-light be- 
fore me, up I go, for no reason on earth that I can find 
out, and drawn by no links that are visible to me, up the 
Great Saint Bernard ! I have lived in Switzerland, and 
rambled among the mountains ; but, why I should go 
there now, and why up the Great Saint Bernard in 
preference to any other mountain, I have no idea. As 
I lie here broad awake, and with every sense so sharp- 
ened that I can distinctly hear distant noises inaudible 
to me at another time, I make that journey, as I really 
did, on the same summer day, with the same happy 
party — ah ! two since dead, I grieve to think — and 
there is the same track, with the same black wooden 
arms to point the way, and there are the same storm- 
refimes here and there ; and there is the same snow 
falling at the top, and there are the same frosty mists 
and there is the same intensely cold convent with its 
menagerie smell, and the same breed of dogs fast dying 
out, and the same breed of jolly young monks whom I 
mourn to know as humbugs, and the same convent parlor 
with its piano and the sitting round the fire, and the 
frame supper, and the same lone night in a cell, and the 


LYING AWAKE. 


L9 


same bright fresh morning when going out into the 
highly rarefied air was like a plunge into an icy bath. 
Now, see here what comes along ; and why does this 
thing stalk into my mind on the top of a Swiss moun- 
tain ! 

It is a figure that I once saw, just after dark, chalked 
upon a door in a little back lane near a country church 

— my first church. How young a child I may have been 
at the time I don’t know, but it horrified me so intensely 

— in connection with the churchyard, I suppose, for it 
smokes a pipe, and has a big hat with each of its ears 
sticking out in a horizontal line under the brim, and is 
not in itself more oppressive than a mouth from ear to 
ear, a pair of goggle eyes, and hands like two bunches 
of carrots, five in each, can make it — that it is still 
vaguely alarming to me to recall (as I have often done 
before, lying awake) the running home, the looking be- 
hind, the horror, of its following me ; though whether 
disconnected from the door, or door and all, I can’t say, 
and perhaps never could. It lays a disagreeable train. 
I must resolve to think of something on the voluntary 
principle. 

The balloon ascents of this last season. They will do 
to think about, while I lie awake, as well as anything 
else. I must hold them tight though, for I feel them slid- 
ing away, and in their stead are the Mannings, husband 
and wife, hanging on the top of Ilorsemonger Lane Jail. 
In connection with which dismal spectacle, I recall this 
curious fantasy of the mind. That, having beheld that 
execution, and having left those two forms dangling on 
the top of the entrance gateway — the man’s, a limp, 
loose suit of clothes as if the man had gone out of them ; 
the woman’s, a fine shape, so elaborately corseted and 


70 


LYING AWAKE. 


artfully dressed, that it was quite unchanged in its trim 
appearance as it slowly swung from side to side — 1 
never could, by my utmost efforts, for some weeks, pre- 
sent the outside of that prison to myself (which the ter- 
rible impression I had received continually obliged me 
to do) without presenting it with the two figures still 
hanging in the morning air. Until, strolling past the 
gloomy place one night, when the street was deserted 
and quiet, and actually seeing that the bodies were not 
there, my fancy was persuaded, as it were, to take them 
down and bury them within the precincts of the jail, 
where they have lain ever since. 

— The balloon ascents of last season. Let me reckon 
them up. There were the horse, the bull, the parachute, 
and the tumbler hanging on — chiefly by his toes, I be- 
lieve — below the car. Very wrong, indeed, and decid- 
edly to be stopped. But, in connection with these and 
similar dangerous exhibitions, it strikes me that that por- 
tion of the public whom they entertain, is unjustly re- 
proached. Their pleasure is in the difficulty overcome. 
They are a public of great faith, and are quite con- 
fident that the gentleman will not fall off the horse, or 
the lady off the bull or out of the parachute, and that 
the tumbler has a firm hold with his toes. They do not 
go to see the adventurer vanquished, but triumphant. 
There is no parallel in public combats between men and 
beasts, because nobody can answer for the particular 
beast — unless it were always the same beast, in which 
case it would be a mere stage-show, which the same pub- 
lic would go in the same state of mind to see, entirely 
oelieving in the brute being beforehand safely subdued 
by the man. That they are not accustomed to calculate 
hazards and dangers with any nicety, we may know from 


LYING AWAKE. 


71 


their rasli exposure of themselves in overcrowded steam- 
boats, and unsafe conveyances and places of all kinds. 
And I cannot help thinking that instead of railing, and 
attributing savage motives to a people naturally well dis- 
posed and humane, it is better to teach them, and lead 
them argumentatively and reasonably — for they are 
very reasonable, if you will discuss a matter with them 
— to more considerate and wise conclusions. 

This is a disagreeable intrusion ! Here is a man with 
his throat cut, dashing towards me as I lie awake ! A 
recollection of an old story of a kinsman of mine, who, 
going home one foggy winter night to Hampstead, when 
London was much smaller and the road lonesome, sud- 
denly encountered such a figure rushing past him, and 
presently two keepers from a madhouse in pursuit. A 
very unpleasant creature indeed, to come into my mind 
unbidden, as I lie awake. 

— The balloon ascents of last season. I must return 
to the balloons. Why did the bleeding man start out of 
them ? Never mind ; if I inquire, he will be back 
again. The balloons. This particular public have in- 
herently a great pleasure in the contemplation of physi- 
cal difficulties overcome ; mainly, as I take it, because 
the lives of a large majority of them are exceedingly 
monotonous and real, and further, are a struggle against 
continual difficulties, and further still, because anything 
in the form of accidental injury, or any kind of illness 
or disability is so very serious in their own sphere. I 
will explain this seeming paradox of mine. Take the 
case of a Christmas Pantomime. Surely nobody supposes 
that the young mother in the pit who falls into fits of 
laughter when the baby is boiled or sat upon, would be 
at all diverted by such an occurrence off the stage. Nor 


72 


LYING AWAKE. 


is the decent workman in the gallery, who is transported 
beyond the ignorant present by the delight with which he 
sees a stout gentleman pushed out of a two pair of stairs 
window, to be slandered by the suspicion that he would 
be in the least entertained by such a spectacle in any 
street in London, Paris, or New York. It always ap- 
pears to me that the secret of this enjoyment lies in the 
temporary superiority to the common hazards and mis- 
chances of life ; in seeing casualties, attended when they 
really occur with bodily and mental suffering, tears, and 
poverty, happen through a very rough sort of poetry 
without the least harm being done to any one — the pre- 
tence of distress in a pantomime being so broadly humor- 
ous as to be no pretence at all. Much as in the comic 
fiction I can understand the mother with a very vulner- 
able baby at home, greatly relishing the invulnerable 
baby on the stage, so in the Cremorne reality I can un- 
derstand the mason who is always liable to fall off a scaf- 
fold in his working jacket and to be carried to the hospi- 
tal, having an infinite admiration of the radiant personage 
in spangles who goes into the clouds upon a bull, or up- 
side down, and who, he takes it for granted — not reflect- 
ing upon the thing — has, by uncommon skill and dex- 
terity, conquered such mischances as those to which he 
and his acquaintance are continually exposed. 

I wish the Morgue in Paris would not come here as I 
lie awake, with its ghastly beds, and the swollen satu- 
rated clothes hanging up, and the water dripping, dripping 
all day long, upon that other swollen saturated something 
in the corner, like a heap of crushed over-ripe figs that I 
have seen in Italy ! And this detestable Morgue comes 
back again at the head of a procession of forgotten 
ghost stories. This will never do. I must think of 


LYING AWAKE. 


73 


Bometliing else as I lie awake ; or, like that sagacious 
animal in the United States who recognized the colonel 
who was such a dead shot, I am a gone ’Coon. What 
shall I think of? The late brutal assaults. Very good 
subject. The late brutal assaults. 

(Though whether, supposing I should see, here befor 
me as I lie awake, the awful phantom described in om 
of those ghost stories, who, with a head-dress of shroud, 
was always seen looking in through a certain glass door 
at a certain dead hour — whether, in such a case it would 
be the least consolation to me to know on philosophical 
ground that it was merely my imagination, is a- question 
I can’t help asking myself by the way.) 

The late brutal assaults. I strongly question the ex- , 
pediency of advocating the revival of whipping for those 
crimes. It is a natural and generous impulse to be indig- 
nant at the perpetration of inconceivable brutality, but I 
doubt the whipping panacea gravely. Not in the least 
regard or pity for the criminal, whom I hold in far lower 
estimation than a mad wolf, but in consideration for the 
general tone and feeling, which is very much improved 
since the whipping times. It is bad for a people to be 
familiarized with such punishments. When the whip 
went out of Bridewell, and ceased to be flourished at the 
cart’s tail and at the whipping-post, it began to fade out 
of madhouses, and workhouses, and schools, and families, 
and to give place to a better system everywhere, than 
cruel driving. It would be hasty, because a few brutes 
may be inadequately punished, to revive, in any aspect, 
vhat, in so many aspects, society is hardly yet happily 
rid of. The whip is a very contagious kind of thing, and 
diflicult to confine within one set of bounds. Utterly 
abolish punishment by fine — a barbarous device, quite 


74 


LYING AWAKE. 


as much out of date as wager by battle, but particularly 
connected in the vulgar mind with this class of offence — 
at least quadruple the term of imprisonment for aggra- 
vated assaults — and above all let us, in such cases, have 
no Pet Prisoning, vain-glorifying, strong soup, and 
roasted meats, but hard work, and one unchanging and 
uncompromising dietary of bread and water, well or ill ; 
and we shall do much better than by going down into the 
dark to grope for the whip among the rusty fragments of 
the rack, and the branding iron, and the chains and gib- 
bet from the public roads, and the weights that pressed 
men to death in the cells of Newgate. 

I had proceeded thus far, when I found I had been 
dying awake so long that the very dead began to wake 
too, and to crowd into my thoughts most sorrowfully. 
Therefore, I resolved to lie awake no more, but to get 
up and go out for a night walk — which resolution was 
an acceptable relief to me, as I dare say it may prove 
now to a great many more. 


THE POOR RELATION’S STORY. 


♦ 

He was very reluctant to take precedence of so many 
respected members of the family, by beginning the round 
of stories they were to relate as they sat in a goodly circle 
by the Christmas fire ; and he modestly suggested that it 
would be more correct if ‘‘John our esteemed host” 
(whose health he begged to drink) would have the kind- 
ness to begin. For as to himself, he said, he was so 

little used to lead the way that really But as they 

all cried out here, that he must begin, and agreed with 
one voice that he might, could, would, and should begin, 
he left off rubbing his hands, and took his legs out from 
under his arm-chair, and did begin. 

I have no doubt (said the poor relation) that I shall 
surprise the assembled members of our family, and par- 
ticularly John our esteemed host to whom we are so 
much indebted for the great hospitality with which he 
has this day entertained us, by the confession I am going 
to make. But, if you do me the honor to be surprised 
at anything that falls from a person so unimportant in 
the family as I am, I can only say that I shall be scru- 
pulously accurate in all I relate. 

I am not what I am supposed to be. I am quite an- 
other thing. Perhaps before I go further, I had better 
glance at what I am supposed to be. 


76 


THE POOR RELATION’S STORY. 


It is supposed, unless I mistake — the assembled mem- 
bers of our family will correct me if I do, which is very 
likely (here the poor relation looked mildly about him 
for contradiction) — that I am nobody’s enemy but my 
own. That I never met with any particular success ill 
anything. That I failed in business because I was un 
business-like and credulous — in not being prepared fo 
the interested designs of my partner. That I failed in 
love, because I was ridiculously trustful — in thinking it 
impossible that Christiana could deceive me. That I 
failed in my expectations from my uncle Chill, on account 
of not being as sharp as he could have wished in worldly 
matters. That, through life, I have been rather put 
upon and disappointed, in a general way. That I am 
at present a bachelor of between fifty-nine and sixty years 
of age, living on a limited income in the form of a quar- 
terly allowance, to which I see that John our esteemed 
host wishes me to make no further allusion. 

The supposition as to my present pursuits and habits 
is to the following effect. 

I live in a lodging in the Clapham Road — a very 
clean back room, in a very respectable house — where I 
am expected not to be at home in the day-time, unless 
poorly ; and which I usually leave in the morning at nine 
o’clock, on pretence of going to business. I take my 
breakfast — my roll and butter, and my half - pint of 
coffee — at the old established coffee-shop near West- 
minster Bridge; and then I go into the City — I don’t 
know why — and sit in Garraway’s Coffee House, and 
on ’Change, and walk about, and look into a few offices 
and counting-houses where some of my relations or ac- 
quaintance are so good as to tolerate me, and where I 
stand by the fire if the weather happens to be cold. I 


THE POOR RELATION’S STORY. 77 

get through the day in this way until five o’clock, and 
then I dine : at a cost, on the average, of one and three- 
pence. Having still a little money to spend on my even- 
ing’s entertainment, I look into the old-established coffee- 
shop as I go home, and take my cup of tea, and perhaps 
my bit of toast. So, as the large hand of the clock 
makes its way round to the morning hour again, I make 
my way round to the Clapham Road again, and go to 
bed when I get to my lodging — fire being expensive, 
and being objected to by the family on account of its 
giving trouble and making a dirt. 

Sometimes, one of my relations or acquaintances is so 
obliging as to ask me to dinner. Those are holiday 
occasions, and then I generally walk in the Park. I 
am a solitary man, and seldom walk with anybody. Not 
that I am avoided because I am shabby ; for I am not 
at all shabby, having always a very good suit of black 
on (or rather Oxford mixture, which has the appearance 
of black and wears much better) ; but I have got into a 
habit of speaking low, and being rather silent, and my 
spirits are not high, and I am sensible that I am not an 
attractive companion. 

The only exception to this general rule is the child of 
my first cousin, Little Frank. I have a particular affec- 
tion for that child, and he takes very kindly to me. He 
is a diffident boy by nature ; and in a crowd he is soon 
run over, as I may say, and forgotten. He and I, how- 
ever, get on exceedingly well. I have a fancy that the 
poor child will in time succeed to my peculiar position 
in the family. We talk but little ; still, we understand 
each other. We walk about, hand in hand ; and without 
much speaking he knows what I mean, and I know what 
he means. When he was very little indeed, I used to 


78 


THE POOR RELATION’S STORY. 


take him to the windows of the toy-shops, and show him 
the toys inside. It is surprising l 10 w soon he found out 
that I would have made him a great many presents if I 
had been in circumstances to do it. 

Little Frank and I go and look at the outside of the 
Monument — he is very fond of the Monument — and 
at the Bridges, and at all the sights that are free. On 
two of my birthdays, we have dined on a-la-mode beef, 
and gone at half-price to the play, and been deeply inter- 
ested. I was once walking with him in Lombard Street, 
which we often visit on account of my having mentioned 
to him that there are great riches there — he is very 
fond of Lombard Street — when a gentleman said to me 
as he passed by, “ Sir, your little son has dropped his 
glove.” I assure you, if you will excuse my remarking 
on so trivial a circumstance, this accidental mention of 
the child as mine, quite touched my heart and brought 
the foolish tears into my eyes. 

When little Frank is sent to school in the country, I 
shall be very much at a loss what to do with myself, but 
I have the intention of walking down there once a 
month and seeing him on a half holiday. I am told he 
will then be at play upon the Heath ; and if my visits 
should be objected to, as unsettling the child, I can see 
him from a distance without his seeing me, and walk 
back again. His mother comes of a highly genteel 
family, and rather disapproves, I am aware, of our being 
too much together. I know that I am not calculated tc 
improve his retiring disposition ; but I think he would 
miss me beyond the feeling of the moment, if we were 
wholly separated. 

When I die in the Clapham Road, I shall not leave 
much more in this world than I shall take out of it ; but. 


THE POOR RELATION’S STORY. 


79 


I happen to have a miniature of a bright-faced boy, with 
a curling head, and an open shirt-frill waving down his 
bosom (my mother had it taken for me, but I can’t be- 
lieve that it was ever like), which will be worth nothing 
to sell, and which I shall beg may be given to Frank, 
have written my dear boy a little letter with it, in whicl 
I have told him that I felt very sorry to part from him, 
though bound to confess that I knew no reason why I 
should remain here. I have given him some short 
advice, the best in my power, to take warning of the 
consequences of being nobody’s enemy but his own ; and 
I have endeavored to comfort him for what I fear he will 
consider a bereavement, by pointing out to him, that I 
was only a superfluous something to every one but him ; 
and that having by some means failed to find a place in 
this great assembly, I am better out of it. 

Such (said the poor relation, clearing his throat and 
beginning to speak a little louder) is the general impres- 
sion about me. Now, it is a remarkable circumstance 
which forms the aim and purpose of my story, that this 
is all wrong. This is not my life, and these are not my 
habits. I do not even live in the Clapham Road. Com- 
paratively speaking, I am very seldom there. I reside, 
mostly, in a — I am almost ashamed to say the word, it 
sounds so full of pretension — in a Castle. I do not 
mean that it is an old baronial habitation, but still it is a 
building always known to every one by the name of a 
Castle. In it, I preserve the particulars of my history ; 
they run thus : 

It was when I first took John Spatter (who had been 
my clerk) into partnership, and when I was still a young 
man of not more than five-and-twenty, residing in the 
house of my uncle Chill from whom I had considerable 


80 


THE TOOK RELATION’S STORY. 


expectations, that I ventured to propose to Christiana. 
I had loved Christiana, a long time. She was very beau- 
tiful, and very winning in all respects. I rather mis- 
trusted her widowed mother, who I feared was of a plot- 
ting and mercenary turn of mind ; but, I thought as well 
of her as I could, for Christiana’s sake. I never had 
oved any one but Christiana, and she had been all the 
world, and 0 far more than all the world, to me, from 
our childhood ! 

Christiana accepted me with her mother’s consent, and 
I was rendered very happy indeed. My life at my Uncle 
Chill’s was of a spare dull kind, and my garret chamber 
was as dull, and bare, and cold, as an upper prison room 
in some stern northern fortress. But, having Christiana’s 
love, I wanted nothing upon earth. I would not have 
changed my lot with any human being. 

Avarice was, unhappily, my Uncle Chill’s master vice. 
Though he was rich, he pinched, and scraped, and clutch- 
ed, and lived miserably. As Christiana had no fortune, 
I was for some time a little fearful of confessing our en- 
gagement to him ; but, at length I wrote him a letter, 
saying how it all truly was. I put it into his hand one 
night, on going to bed. 

As I came down-stairs next morning, shivering in the 
cold December air ; colder in my uncle’s unwarmed house 
than in the street, where the winter sun did sometimes 
shine, and which was at all events enlivened by cheerful 
faces and voices passing along ; I carried a heavy heart 
towards the long, low breakfast-room in which my uncle 
sat. It was a large room with a small fire, and there was 
a great bay window in it which the rain had marked in 
the night as if with the tears of houseless people. It 
:tared upon a raw yard, with a cracked stone pavement, 


THE POOR RELATION’S STORY. 


81 


and some rusted iron railings half uprooted, whence an 
ugly out-building, that had once been a dissecting-room (in 
the time of the great surgeon who had mortgaged the 
house to my uncle), stared at it. 

We rose so early always, that at that time of the year 
we breakfasted by candle-light. When I went into the 
room, my uncle was so contracted by the cold, and so hud- 
dled together in his chair behind the one dim candle, that 
I did not see him until I was close to the table. 

As I held out my hand to him, he caught up his stick 
(being infirm, he always walked about the house with a 
stick), and made a blow at me, and said, “ You fool ! ” 

“ Uncle,” I returned, “ I didn’t expect you to be so 
angry as this.” Nor had I expected it, though he was a 
hard and angry old man. 

“ You didn’t expect ! ” said he ; “ when did you ever 
expect ? When did you ever calculate, or look forward, 
you contemptible dog ? ” 

“ These are hard words, uncle ! ” 

_ “ Hard words? Feathers, to pelt such an idiot as 
you with,” said he. “ Here ! Betsy Snap ! Look at 
him ! ” 

Betsy Snap was a withered, hard-favored, yellow old 
woman — our only domestic — always employed, at this 
time of the morning, in rubbing my uncle’s legs. As my 
uncle adjured her to look at me, he put his lean grip on 
the crown of her head, she kneeling beside him, and 
turned her face towards me. An involuntary thought 
connecting them both with the Dissecting Boom, as it 
must often have been in the surgeon’s time, passed across 
my mind in the midst of my anxiety. 

“ Look at the snivelling milksop ! ” said my uncle. 
“ Look at the baby ! This is the gentleman who, people 

VOL. II. 6 


82 


THE POOR RELATION’S STORY. 


Bay, is nobody’s enemy but his own. This is the gentle 
man who can’t say no. This is the gentleman who was 
making such large profits in his business that he must 
needs take a partner, t’other day. This is the gentleman 
who is going to marry a wife without a penny, and whr 
falls into the hands of Jezebels who are speculating oi 
my death ! ” 

I kneiv, now, how great my uncle’s rage was ; for 
nothing short of his being almost beside himself would 
have induced him to utter that concluding word, which 
he held in such repugnance that it was never spoken or 
hinted at before him on any account. 

“ On my death,” he repeated, as if he were defying me 
by defying his own abhorrence of the word. “ On my 
death — death — Death ! But I’ll spoil the speculation 
Eat your last under this roof, you feeble wretch, and 
may it choke you ! ” 

You may suppose that I had not much appetite for the 
breakfast to which I was bidden in these terms ; but, I 
took my accustomed seat. I saw that I was repudiated 
henceforth by my uncle ; still, I could bear that very well, 
possessing Christiana’s heart. 

He emptied his basin of bread and milk as usual, only 
that he took it on his knees with his chair turned away 
from the table where I sat. When he had done, he care- 
fully snuffed out the candle ; and the cold, slate-colored, 
miserable day looked in upon us. 

“ Now, Mr. Michael,” said he, “ before we part, 
should like to have a word with these ladies in your 
presence.” 

“ As you will, sir,” I returned ; “ but you deceive your- 
self, and wrong us, cruelly, if you suppose that there is 
any feeling at stake in this contract but pure, disinter- 
ested, faithful love.” 


THE POOR RELATION’S STORY. 


83 


To this, he only replied, “ You lie ! ” and not one other 
word. 

We went, through half-thawed snow and half-frozen 
rain, to the house where Christiana and her mother 
lived. My uncle knew them very well. They were sit 
ting at their breakfast, and were surprised to see us at 
that hour. 

“ Your servant, ma’am,” said my uncle to the mother 
“ You divine the purpose of my visit, I dare say, ma’am. 
I understand there is a world of pure, disinterested, faith- 
ful love cooped up here. I am happy to bring it all it 
wants, to make it complete. I bring you your son-in- 
law, ma’am — and you, your husband, miss. The gentle- 
man is a perfect stranger to me, but I wish him joy of 
his wise bargain.” 

He snarled at me as he went out, and I never saw him 
again. 


It is altogether a mistake (continued the poor relation) 
to suppose that my dear Christiana, over-persuaded and 
influenced by her mother, married a rich man, the dirt 
from whose carriage wheels is often, in these changed 
times, thrown upon me as she rides by. No, no. She 
married me. 

The way we came to be married rather sooner than we 
intended, was this. I took a frugal lodging and was sav- 
ing and planning for her sake, when, one day, she spoke 
to me with great earnestness, and said, — 

“ My dear Michael, I have given you my heart. I 
have said that I loved you, and I have pledged myself 
to be your wife. I am as much yours through all changes 
of good and evil as if we had been married on the day 
when such words passed between us. I know you well, 


S4 


THE POOR RELATION’S STORY. 


and know that if we should be separated and our union 
broken off, your whole life would be shadowed, and all 
that might, even now, be stronger in your character for 
the conflict with the world would then be weakened to 
the shadow of what it is ! ” 

“ God help me, Christiana ! ” said I. “ You speak the 
truth.” 

“ Michael ! ” said she, putting her hand in mine, in all 
maidenly devotion, “ let us keep apart no longer. It is but 
for me to say that I can live contented upon such means 
as you have, and I well know you are happy. I say so 
from my heart. Strive no more alone ; let us strive to- 
gether. My dear Michael, it is not right that I should 
keep secret from you what you do not suspect, but what 
distresses my whole life. My mother : without consider- 
ing that what you have lost, you have lost for me, and 
on the assurance of my faith : sets her heart on riches, 
and urges another suit upon me, to my misery. I can- 
not bear this, for to bear it is to be untrue to you. I 
would rather share your struggles than look on. I want 
no better home than you can give me. I know that you 
will aspire and labor with a higher courage if I am wholly 
yours, and let it be so when you will ! ” 

I was blest indeed, that day, and a * new world opened 
to me. We were married in a very little while, and I 
took my wife to our happy home. That was the begin- 
ning of the residence I have spoken off ; the Castle we 
have ever since inhabited together, dates from that time. 
All our children have been born in it. Our first child — 
now married — was a little girl, whom we called Chris- 
tiana. Her son is so like Little Frank, that I hardly 
know which is which. 


THE POOR RELATION’S STORY. 


85 


The current impression as to my partner’s dealings 
with me is also quite erroneous. He did not begin to 
treat me coldly, as a poor simpleton, when my uncle and 
I so fatally quarrelled ; nor did he afterwards gradually 
possess himself of our business and edge me out. On 
the contrary, he behaved to me with the utmost good 
faith and honor. 

Matters between us, took this turn : — On the day of 
my separation from my uncle, and even before the arri- 
val at our counting-house of my trunks (which he sent 
after me, not carriage paid), I went down to our room of 
business, on our little wharf, overlooking the river ; and 
there I told John Spatter what had happened. John did 
not say, in reply, that rich old relatives were palpable 
facts, and that love and sentiment were moonshine and 
fiction. He addressed me thus, — 

“Michael,” said John. “We were at school together, 
and I generally had the knack of getting on better than 
you, and making a higher reputation.” 

“ You had, John,” I returned. 

“ Although,” said John, “ I borrowed your books and 
lost them ; borrowed your pocket-money, and never re- 
paid it ; got you to buy my damaged knives at a higher 
price than I had given for them new ; and to own to the 
windows that I had broken.” 

“ All not worth mentioning, John Spatter,” said I, “ but 
certainly true.” 

“ When you were first established in this infant busi- 
ness, which promises to thrive so well,” pursued John, 
“ I came to you, in my search for almost any employ- 
ment, and you made me your clerk.” 

“Still not worth mentioning, my dear John Spatter/ 
said I ; “ still, equally true.” 


86 THE POOR RELATION’S STORY. 

“ And finding that I had a good head for business, and 
that I was really useful to the business, you did not like 
to retain me in that capacity, and thought it an act of 
justice soon to make me your partner.” 

“ Still less worth mentioning than any of those other 
little circumstances you have recalled, John Spatter,” 
said I ; “ for I was, and am, sensible of your merits and 
my deficiencies.” 

“ Now my good friend,” said John, drawing my arm 
through his, as he had had a habit of doing at school ; 
while two vessels outside the windows of our counting- 
house — which were shaped like the stern windows of a 
ship — went lightly down the river with the tide, as 
John and I might then be sailing away in company, and 
in trust and confidence, on our voyage of life ; “ let there, 
under these friendly circumstances, be a right understand- 
ing between us. You are too easy, Michael. You are 
nobody’s enemy but your own. If I were to give you 
that damaging character among our connection, with a 
shrug, and a shake of the head, and a sigh ; and if I 
were further to abuse the trust you place in me ” — 

“ But you never will abuse it at all, John,” I observed. 

“ Never ! ” said he, “ but I am putting a case — I say, 
and if I were further to abuse that trust by keeping this 
piece of our common affairs in the dark, and this other 
piece in the light, and again this other piece in the twi- 
light, and so on, I should strengthen my strength, and 
weaken your weakness, day by day, until at last I found 
myself on the high road to fortune, and you left behind 
on some bare common, a hopeless number of miles out 
of the way.” 

“ Exactly so,” said I. 

“ To prevent this, Michael,” said John Spatter, “ or 


THE POOR RELATION’S STORY. 


87 


the remotest chance of this, there must be perfect open- 
ness between as. Nothing must be concealed, and we 
must have but one interest.” 

“ My dear John Spatter,” I assured him, “ that is pre- 
cisely what I mean.” 

“ And when you are too easy,” pursued John, his face 
glowing with friendship, “ you must allow me to prevent 
that imperfection in your nature from being taken advan- 
tage of, by any one ; you must not expect me to humor 
it ” — 

“My dear John Spatter,” I interrupted, “I dorit ex- 
pect you to humor it. I want to correct it.” 

“ And I, too ! ” said John. 

“ Exactly so ! ” cried I. “We both have the same 
end in view ; and, honorably seeking it, and fully trusting 
one another, and having but one interest, ours will be a 
prosperous and happy partnership.” 

“ I am sure of it ! ” returned John Spatter. And we 
shook hands most affectionately. 

I took John home to my Castle, and we had a very 
happy day. Our partnership throve well. My friend 
and partner supplied what I wanted, as I had foreseen 
that he would ; and by improving both the business and 
myself, amply acknowledged any little rise in life to 
which I had helped him. 

A 

I am not (said the poor relation, looking at the fire as 
he slowly rubbed his hands), very rich, for I never cared 
to be that ; but I have enough, and am above all mod- 
erate wants and anxieties. My Castle is not a splendid 
place, but it is very comfortable, and it has a warm and 
cheerful air, and is quite a picture of Home. 

Our eldest girl, who is very like her mother, married 


THE POOR RELATION’S STORY. 


88 

John Spatter’s eldest son. Our two families are closely 
united in other ties of attachment. It is very pleasant 
of an evening, when we are all assembled together — 
which frequently happens — and when John and I talk 
over old times, and the one interest there has always 
been between us. 

I really do not know, in my Castle, what loneliness is. 
Some of our children or grandchildren are always about 
*t, and the young voices of my descendants are delightful 
— O, how delightful ! — to me to hear. My dearest and 
most devoted wife, ever faithful, ever loving, ever helpful 
and sustaining and consoling, is the priceless blessing of 
my house ; from whom all its other blessings spring. We 
are rather a musical family, and when Christiana sees 
me, at any time, a little weary or depressed, she steals to 
the piano and sings a gentle air she used to sing when 
we were first betrothed. So weak a man am I, that 
I cannot bear to hear it from any other source. They 
played it once, at the Theatre, when I was there with 
little Frank ; and the child said wondering, “ Cousin 
Michael, whose hot tears are these that have fallen on 
my hand ! ” 

Such is my Castle, and such are the real particulars 
of my life therein preserved. I often take Little Frank 
home there. • He is very welcome to my grandchildren, 
and they play together. At this time of the year — the 
Christmas and New Year time — I am seldom out of my 
Castle. For, the associations of the season seem to hold 
me there, and the precepts of the season seem to teach 
me that it is well to be there. 

“ And the Castle is — ” observed a grave, kind voice 
among the company. 


THE POOR RELATION’S STORY. 


89 


“ Yes. My Castle,” said the poor relation, shaking 
his head as he still looked at the fire, “is in the Air. 
John our esteemed host suggests its situation accurately. 
My Castle is in the Air ! I have done. Will you be 
so good as to pass the story.” 




THE CHILD’S STORY. 


♦ 

Once upon a time, a good many years ago, there was 
a traveller, and he set out upon a journey. It was a 
magic journey, and was to seem very long when he 
began it, and very short when he got half way through. 

He travelled along a rather dark path for some little 
time, without meeting anything, until at last he came to 
a beautiful child. So he said to the child, “ What do 
you do here ? ” And the child said, “ I am always at 
play. Come and play with me ! ” 

. So, he played with that child, the whole day long, and 
they were very merry. The sky was so blue, the sun 
was so bright, the water was so sparkling, the leaves 
were so green, the flowers were so lovely, and they 
heard such singing-birds and saw so many butterflies, 
that everything was beautiful. This was in fine weather. 
When it rained, they loved to watch the falling drops, 
and to smell the fresh scents. When it blew, it was de- 
lightful to listen to the wind, and fancy what it said, as it 
came rushing from its home — where was that, they won- 
dered ! — whistling and howling, driving the clouds before 
it, bending the trees, rumbling in the chimneys, shaking 
the house, and making the sea roar in fury. But, when 
it snowed, that was best of all ; for, they liked nothing 
bo well as to look up at the white flakes falling fast and 


v 


91 


THE CHILD’S STORY. 

thick, like down from the breasts of millions of white 
birds ; and to see how smooth and deep the drift was ; 
and to listen to the hush upon the paths and roads. 

They had plenty of the finest toys in the world, and 
the most astonishing picture-books : all about scimitars 
and slippers and turbans, and dwarfs and giants and genii 
and fairies, and blue-beards and bean-stalks and riches 
and caverns and forests and Valentines and Orsons : and 
all new and all true. 

But, one day, of a sudden, the traveller lost the child 
He called to him over and over again, but got no an- 
swer. So, he went upon his road, and went on for a 
little while without meeting anything, until at last he 
came to a handsome boy. So, he said to the boy, “ What 
do you do here ? ” And the boy said, u I am always 
learning. Come and learn with me. 5 ' 

So he learned with that boy about Jupiter and Juno, 
and the Greeks and the Romans, and I don’t know what, 
and learned more than I could tell — or he either, for he 
soon forgot a great deal of it. But, they were not al- 
ways learning ; they had the merriest games that ever 
were played. They rowed upon the river in summer, 
and skated on the ice in winter ; they were active afoot, 
and active on horseback ; at cricket, and all games at 
ball ; at prisoners’ base, hare and hounds, follow my 
leader, and more sports than I can think of ; nobody 
c )uld beat them. They had holidays too, and Twelfth 
cakes, and parties where they danced till midnight, and 
real Theatres where they saw palaces of real gold and 
silver rise out of the real earth, and saw all the wonders 
of the world at once. As to friends, they had such dear 
friends and so many of them, that I want the time tc 
reckon them up. They w r er§ all young, like the hand- 


92 


THE CHILD’S STORY. 


some boy, and were never to be strange to one another 
all their lives through. 

Still, one day, in the midst of all these pleasures, the 
traveller lost the boy as he had lost the child, and, after 
calling to him in vain, went on upon his journey. So he 
went on for a little while without seeing anything, until 
at last he came to a young man. So, he said to the 
young man, “ What do you do here ? ” And the young 
man said, “ I am always in love. Come and love with 
me.” 

So, he went away with that young man, and presently 
they came to one of the prettiest girls that ever was seen 
— just like Fanny in the corner there — and she had 
eyes like Fanny, and hair like Fanny, and dimples like 
Fanny’s, and she laughed and colored just as Fanny does 
while I am talking about her. So, the young man fell in 
love directly — just as Somebody I won’t mention, the 
first time he came here, did with Fanny. Well! He 
was teased sometimes — just as Somebody used to be by 
Fanny; and they quarrelled sometimes — just as Some- 
body and Fanny used to quarrel ; and they made it up, 
and sat in the dark, and wrote letters every day, and 
never were happy asunder, and were always looking out 
for one another and pretending not to, and were engaged 
at Christmas time, and sat close to one another by the 
fire, and were going to be married very soon — all ex- 
actly like Somebody I won’t mention, and Fanny! 

But, the traveller lost them one day, as he had lost the 
rest of his friends, and, after calling to them to come 
back, which they never did, went on upon his journey. 
So, he went on for a little while without seeing anything, 
until at last he came to a middle-aged gentleman. So, 
he said to the gentleman, “ ,Wh a t are you doing here ? ’' 


THE CHILD’S STORY. 


93 


And his answer was, “ I am always busy. Come and be 
busy with me ! ” 

So, he began to be very busy with that gentleman, 
and they went on through the wood together. The 
whole journey was through a wood, only it had been 
open and green at first, like a wood in spring ; and now 
began to be thick and dark, like a wood in summer ; 
some of the little trees that had come out earliest, were 
even turning brown. The gentleman was not alone, but 
had a lady of about the same age with him, who was his 
Wife ; and they had children, who were with them too. 
So, they all went on together through the wood, cutting 
down the trees, and making a path through the branches 
and the fallen leaves, and carrying burdens, and working 
hard. 

Sometimes, they came to a long green avenue that 
opened into deeper woods. Then they would hear a very 
little distant voice crying, “Father, father, I am another 
child ! Stop for me ! ” And presently they would see 
a very little figure, growing larger as it came along, run- 
ning to join them. When it came up, they all crowded 
round it, and kissed and welcomed it ; and then they all 
went on together. 

Sometimes, they came to several avenues at once, and 
then they all stood still, and one of the children said, 
u Father, I am going to sea,” and another said, “ Father, 
I am going to India,” and another, “ Father, I am going 
to seek my fortune where I can,” and another, “ Father, 
I am going to Heaven ! ” So, with many tears at part- 
ing, they went, solitary, down those avenues, each child 
upon its way ; and the child who went to Heaven, rose 
into the golden air and vanished. 

Whenever these partings happened, the traveller 


94 


THE CHILD’S STORY. 


looked at the gentleman, and saw him glance up at the 
sky above the trees, where the day was beginning to de- 
cline, and the sunset to come on. He saw, too, that his 
hair was turning gray. But, they never could rest long, 
for they had their journey to perform, and it was neces- 
sary for them to be always busy. 

At last, there had been so many partings that there 
were no children left, and only the traveller, the gentle- 
man, and the lady, went upon their way in company. 
And now the wood was yellow ; and now brown ; and the 
leaves, even of the forest-trees, began to fall. 

So, they came to an avenue that was darker than the 
rest, and were pressing forward on their journey, without 
looking down it when the lady stopped. 

“ My husband, 1 ” said the lady. “ I am called.” 

They listened, and they heard a voice, a long way down 
the avenue, say, “ Mother, mother ! ” 

It was the voice of the first child who had said, “ I am 
going to Heaven ! ” and the father said, “ I pray not yet. 
The sunset is very near. I pray not yet ! ” 

But, the voice cried “ Mother, mother ! ” without mind- 
ing him, though his hair was now quite white, and tears 
were on his face. 

Then, the mother, who was already drawn into the 
shade of the dark avenue and moving away with her 
arms still round his neck, kissed him, and said, “ My 
dearest, I am summoned, and I go ! ” And she was gone. 
And the traveller and he were left alone together. 

And they went on and on together, until they came to 
very near the end of the wood : so near, that they could 
Bee the sunset shining red before them through the trees. 

Yet, once more, while he broke his way among the 
branches, the traveller lost his friend. He called and 


THE CHILD’S STORY. 


95 


railed, but there was no reply, and when he passed out 
of the wood, and saw the peaceful sun going down upon 
a wide purple prospect, he came to an old man sitting on 
a fallen tree. So, he said to the old man, “ What do you 
do here ? ” And the old man said with a calm smile, 
“ I am always remembering. Come and remember with 
me!” 

So the traveller sat down by the side of that old man, 
face to face with the serene sunset ; and all his friends 
came softly back and stood around him. The beautiful 
child, the handsome boy, the young man in love, the 
father, mother, and children : every one of them was 
there, and he had lost nothing. So, he loved them all, and 
was kind and forbearing with them all, and was always 
pleased to watch them all, and they all honored and loved 
him. And I think the traveller must be yourself, dear 
Grandfather, because this is what you do to us, and what 
we do to you. 


I 


THE SCHOOLBOY’S STORY. 


♦ 

i 

Being rather young at present — I am getting on in 
years, but still I am rather young — I have no particular 
adventures of my own to fall back upon. It wouldn’t 
much interest anybody here, I suppose, to know what a 
screw the Reverend is, or what a griffin she is, or how 
they do stick it into parents — particularly hair-cutting, 
and medical attendance. One of our fellows was charged 
in his half’s account twelve and sixpence for two pills — 
tolerably profitable at six and threepence a-piece, I should 
think — and he never took them either, but put them up 
the sleeve of his jacket. 

As to the beef, it’s shameful. It’s not beef. Regular 
beef isn’t veins. You can chew regular beef. Besides 
which, there’s gravy to regular beef, and you never see a 
drop to ours. Another of our fellows went home ill, and 
heard the family doctor tell his father that he couldn’t 
account for his complaint unless it was the beer. Of 
course it was the beer, and well it might be ! 

However, beef and Old Cheeseman are two differer. 
things. So is beer. It was Old Cheeseman I meant to 
tell about ; not the manner in which our fellows get their 
constitutions destroyed for the sake of profit. 

Why, look at the pie-crust alone. There’s no flakiness 
in it. It’s solid — like damp lead. Then our fellows 


* 







THE SCHOOLBOY’S STORY. 


97 


get nightmares, and are bolstered for calling out and 
waking other fellows. Who can wonder ! 

Old Cheeseman one night walked in his sleep, put his 
hat on over his nightcap, got hold of a fishing-rod and 
a cricket-bat, and went down into the parlor, where they 
naturally thought from his appearance he was a Ghost. 
Why, he never would have done that, if his meals had 
been wholesome. When we all begin to walk in our 
sleeps, I suppose they 11 be sorry for it. 

Old Cheeseman wasn’t second Latin Master then ; he 
was a felloAv himself. He was first brought there, very 
small, in a post-chaise, by a woman who was always tak- 
ing snuff and shaking him — and that was the most he 
remembered about it. He never went home for the holi- 
days. His accounts (he never learnt any extras) were 
sent to a Bank, and the Bank paid them ; and he had a 
brown suit twice a-year, and went into boots at twelve. 
They were always too big for him, too. 

In the Midsummer holidays, some of our fellows who 
lived within walking distance, used to come back and 
climb the trees outside the playground wall, on purpose 
to look at Old Cheeseman reading there by himself. He 
was always as mild as the tea — and that’s pretty mild, I 
should hope ! — so when they whistled to him, he looked 
up and nodded ; and when they said “ Halloa, Old Cheese- 
man, what have you had for dinner ? ” he said “ Boiled 
mutton ; ” and when they said “ A’n’t it solitary, Old 
Cheeseman ? ” he said “ It is a little dull, sometimes ; ” 
and then they said “Well, good-by, Old Cheeseman ! ” 
and climbed down again. Of course it was imposing on 
Old Cheeseman to give him nothing but boiled mutton 
through a Avliole Vacation, but that was just like the 
system. When they didn’t give him boiled mutton they 

7 


VOL. II. 


98 


THE SCHOOLBOY’S STORY. 


gave him rice pudding, pretending it was a treat. And 
saved the butcher. 

So Old Cheeseman went on. The holidays brought him 
into other trouble besides the loneliness ; because when 
the fellows began to come back, not wanting to, he was 
always glad to see them ; which was aggravating when 
they were not at all glad to see him, and so he got his 
head knocked against walls, and that was the way his 
nose bled. But he was a favorite in general. Once, a 
subscription was raised for him ; and, to keep up his spir- 
its, he was presented before the holidays with two white 
mice, a rabbit, a pigeon, and a beautiful puppy. Old 
Cheeseman cried about it — especially soon afterwards, 
when they all ate one another. 

Of course Old Cheeseman used to be called by the 
names of all sorts of cheeses — Double Glo’sterman, 
Family Cheshireman, Dutchman, North Wiltshireman, 
and all that. But he never minded it. And I don’t mean 
to say he was old in point of years — because he wasn’t 
— only he was called, from the first, Old Cheeseman. 

At last, Old Cheeseman was made second Latin Mas- 
ter. He was brought in one morning at the beginning 
of a new half, and presented to the school in that capaci- 
ty as “ Mr. Cheeseman.” Then our fellows all agreed 
that Old Cheeseman was a spy, and a deserter, who had 
gone over to the enemy’s camp, and sold himself for gold. 
It was no excuse for him that he had sold himself for very 
little gold — two pound ten a quarter and his washing, 
as was reported. It was decided by a Parliament which 
sat about it, that Old Cheeseman’s mercenary motives 
could alone be taken into account, and that he had 
“ coined our blood for drachmas.” The Parliament took 
the expression out of the quarrel-scene between Brutus 
and Cassius. 


HE SCHOOLBOY’S STORY. 


09 


When it was settled in this strong way that Old 
Cheeseman was a tremendous traitor, who had wormed 
himself into our fellows’ secrets on purpose to get him- 
self into favor by giving up everything he knew, all 
courageous fellows were invited to come forward and 
enroll themselves in a Society for making a set against 
him. The President of the Society was First boy, nam- 
ed Bob Tarter. His father was in the West Indies, and 
he owned, himself, that his father was worth Millions. 
He had great power among our fellows, and he wrote a 
parody, beginning, 

“ Who made believe to be so meek 
That we could hardly hear him speak, 

Yet turned out an Informing Sneak? 

Old Cheeseman.” 

— and on in that way through more than a dozen verses, 
which he used to go and sing, every morning, close by the 
new master’s, desk. He trained one of the low boys too, 
a rosy-cheeked little Brass who didn’t care what he did, 
to go up to him with his Latin Grammar one morning, 
and say it so : — Nominativus pronominum — Old 
Cheeseman, raro exprimitur — was never suspected, nisi 
distinctionis — of being an informer, aut emphasis gratia 

— until he proved one. Ut — for instance, Vos damnas - 
tis — when he sold the boys. Quasi — as though, dicat 

— he should say, Pretcerea nemo — I’m a Judas! All 
this produced a great effect on Old Cheeseman. He had 
never had much hair ; but what he had, began to get 
thinner and thinner every day. He grew paler and more 
worn ; and sometimes of an evening he was seen sitting 
at his desk with a precious long snuff to his candle, and 
his hands before his face, crying. But no member of 
the Society could pity him, even if he felt inclined, 


100 


THE SCHOOLBOY’S STORY. 


because the President said it was Old Cheeseman’s 
conscience. 

So Old Cheeseman went on, and didn’t he lead a mis- 
.erable life ? Of course the Reverend turned up his nose 
at him, and of course she did — because both of them al- 
ways do that, at all the masters — but he suffered from 
the fellows most, and he suffered from them constantly. 
He never told about it, that the Society could find out : 
but he got no credit for that, because the President said 
it was Old Cheeseman’s cowardice. 

He had only one friend in the world, and that one was 
almost as powerless as he was, for it was only Jane. 
Jane was a sort of wardrobe-woman to our fellows, and 
took care of the boxes. She had come at first, I believe, 
as a kind of apprentice — some of our fellows say from 
a Charity, but I don’t know — and after her time was 
out, had stopped at so much a year. So little a year, 
perhaps I ought to say, for it is far more likely. How- 
ever, she had put some pounds in the Savings’ Bank, and 
she was a very nice young woman. She was not quite 
pretty ; but she had a very frank, honest, bright face, 
and all our fellows were fond of her. She was uncom- 
monly neat and cheerful, and uncommonly comfortable 
and kind. And if anything was the matter with a fel- 
low’s mother, he always went and showed the letter to 
Jane. 

Jane was old Cheeseman’s friend. The more the So- 
ciety went against him, the more Jane stood by him. 
She used to give him a good-humored look out of her 
still-room window, sometimes, that seemed to set him up 
for the day. She used to pass out of the orchard and 
the kitchen-garden (always kept locked, I believe you !) 
through the playground, when she might have gone the 


THE SCHOOLBOY’S STORY. 


101 


other way, only to give a turn of her head, as much as to 
say “ Keep up your spirits ! ” to Old Cheeseman. His slip 
of a room was so fresh and orderly, that it was well 
known who looked after it while he was at his desk ; 
and when our fellows saw a smoking hot dumpling on 
his plate at dinner, they knew with indignation who had 
sent it up. 

Under these circumstances, the Society resolved, after 
a quantity of meeting and debating, that Jane should be 
requested to cut Old Cheeseman dead ; and that if she 
refused, she must be sent to Coventry herself. So a 
deputation, headed by the President, was appointed to 
wait on Jane, and inform her of the vote the Society had 
been under the painful necessity of passing. She was 
very much respected for all her good qualities, and there 
was a story about her having once waylaid the Reverend 
in his own study and got a fellow off from severe punish- 
ment, of her own kind comfortable heart. So the depu- 
tation didn’t much like the job. However they went up, 
and the President told Jane all about it. Upon which 
Jane turned very red, burst into tears, informed the 
President and the deputation, in a way not at all like her 
usual way, that they were a parcel of malicious young 
savages, and turned the whole respected body out of the 
room. Consequently it was entered in the Society’s book 
(kept in astronomical cypher for fear of detection), that 
all communication with Jane was interdicted ; and the 
President addressed the members on this convincing in- 
stance of Old Clieeseman’s undermining. 

But Jane was as true to Old Cheeseman as Old 
Cheeseman was false to our fellows — in their opinion at 
ail events — and steadily continued to be his only friend, 
ft was a great exasperation to the Society, because Jane 


102 


THE SCHOOLBOY’S STORY. 


was as much a loss to them as she was a gain to him ; 
and being more inveterate against him than ever, they 
treated him worse than ever. At last, one morning, 
his desk stood empty, his room was peeped into and 
found to be vacant, and a whisper went about among 
the pale faces of our fellows that Old Clieeseman, 
unable to bear it any longer, had got up early and 
drowned himself. 

The mysterious looks of the other masters after break- 
fast, and the evident fact that Old Clieeseman was not 
expected, confirmed the Society in this opinion. Some 
began to discuss whether the President was liable to 
hanging or only transportation for life, and the Presi- 
dent’s face showed a great anxiety to know which. 
However, he said that a jury of his country should find 
him game ; and that in his address he should put it 
to them to lay their hands upon their hearts, and say 
whether they as Britons approved of informers, and how 
they thought they would like it themselves. Some of 
the Society considered that he had better run away until 
he found a forest, where he might change clothes with a 
woodcutter and stain his face with blackberries ; but the 
majority believed that if he stood his ground, his father 
— belonging as he did to the West Indies, and being 
worth Millions — could buy him off. 

All our fellows’ hearts beat fast when the Reverend 
came in, and made a sort of a Roman, or a Field Mar- 
shal, of himself with the ruler ; as he always did before 
delivering an address. But their fears were nothing to 
their astonishment when he came out with the story that 
Old Clieeseman, “ so long our respected friend and fellow- 
pilgrim in the pleasant plains of knowledge,” he called 
liim — O yes ! I dare say ! Much of that ! — was the 


THE SCHOOLBOY’S STORY. 


103 


orphan child of a disinherited young lady who had mar- 
ried against her father’s wish, and whose young husband 
had died, and who had died of sorrow herself, and whose 
unfortunate baby (Old Cheeseman) had been brought up 
at the cost of a grandfather who would never consent to 
see it, baby, boy, or man . which grandfather was now 
dead, and serve him right — that’s my putting in — and 
which grandfather’s large property, there being no will, 
was now, and all of a sudden and forever, Old Cheese- 
man’s ! Our so long respected friend and fellow-pilgrim 
in the pleasant plains of knowledge, the Reverend wound 
up a lot of bothering quotations by saying, would “ come 
among us once more ” that day fortnight, when he desired 
to take leave of us # himself in a more particular manner. 
With these words, he stared severely round at our fel- 
lows, and went solemnly out. 

There was precious consternation among the members 
of the Society, now. Lots of them wanted to resign, 
and lots more began to try to make out that they had 
never belonged to it. However, the President stuck up, 
and said that they must stand or fall together, and that 
if a breach was made it should be over his body — which 
was meant to encourage the Society : but it didn’t. The 
President further said, he would consider the position in 
which they stood, and would give them his best opinion 
and advice in a few days. This was eagerly looked for, 
as he knew a good deal of the world on account of his 
father’s being in the West Indies. 

After days and days of hard thinking, and drawing 
armies all over his slate, the President called our fellows 
together, and made the matter clear. He said it was 
plain that when Old Cheeseman came on the appointed 
lay, his first revenge would be to impeach the Society, 


104 


THE SCHOOLBOY’S STORY. 


and have it flogged all round. After witnessing with 
joy the torture of his enemies, and gloating over the 
cries which agony would extort from them, the proba- 
bility was that he would invite the Reverend, on pre- 
tence of conversation, into a private room — say the 
parlor into which Parents were shown, where the two 
great globes were which were never used — and w r ould 
there reproach him with the various frauds and oppres- 
sions he had endured at his hands. At the close of his 
observations he would make a signal to a Prizefighter 
concealed in the passage, who would then appear and 
pitch into the Reverend till he was left insensible. Old 
Cheeseman would then make Jane a present of from five 
to ten pounds, and would leave the establishment in 
fiendish triumph. 

The President explained that against the parlor part, 
or the Jane part, of these arrangements he had nothing 
to say ; but, on the part of the Society, he counselled 
deadly resistance. With this view he recommended that 
all available desks should be filled with stones, and that 
the first word of the complaint should be the signal to 
every fellow to let fly at Old Cheeseman. The bold 
advice put the Society in better spirits, and was unani- 
mously taken. A post about Old Cheeseman’s size was 
put up in the playground, and all our fellows practised at 
it till it was dinted all over. 

When the day came, and Places were called, every 
fellow sat down in a tremble. There had been much 
discussing and disputing as to how Old Cheeseman would 
come ; but it was the general opinion that he would ap- 
pear in a sort of triumphal car drawn by four horses, 
with two livery servants in front, and the Prizefighter in 
disguise up behind. So, all our fellows sat listening for 


THE SCHOOLBOY’S STORY. 


105 


the sound of wheels. But no wheels were heard, for 
Old Cheeseman walked after all, and came into the 
school without any preparation. Pretty much as he 
u-sed to be, only dressed in black. 

“ Gentlemen, 1 ” said the Reverend, presenting him, 
“ our so long respected friend and fellow-pilgrim in the 
pleasant plains of knowledge, is desirous to offer a word 
or two. Attention, gentlemen, one and all ! ” 

Every fellow stole his hand into his desk and looked 
at the President. The President was all ready, and 
taking aim at Old Cheeseman with his eyes. 

What did Old Cheeseman then, but walk up to his old 
desk, look round him with a queer smile as if there was 
a tear in his eye, and begin in a quavering mild voice, 
‘ My dear companions and old friends ! ” 

Every fellow’s hand came out of his desk, and the 
President suddenly began to cry. 

u My dear companions and old friends,” said Old 
Cheeseman, “ you have heard of my good fortune. I 
have passed so many years under this roof — my entire 
life so far, I may say — that I hope you have been glad 
to hear of it for my sake. I could never enjoy it with- 
out exchanging congratulations with you. If we have 
ever misunderstood one another at all, pray my dear boys 
let us forgive and forget. I have a great tenderness for 
you, and I am sure you return it. I want in the fulness 
of a grateful heart to shake hands with you every one. 
I have come back to do it, if you please, my dear boys.” 
Since the President had begun to cry, several other 
fellows had broken out here and there : but now, when 
Old Cheeseman began with him as first boy, laid his left 
land affectionately on his shoulder and gave him his 
“ight ; and when th President said “ Indeed I don’t de- 


THE SCHOOLBOY’S STORY. 


lOfi 

serve it. sir ; upon my honor I don’t ; ” there was sobbing 
and crying all over the school. Every other fellow said 
he didn’t deserve it, much in the same way ; but Old 
Cheeseman, not minding that a bit, went cheerfully 
round to every boy, and wound up with every master — 
finishing off the Reverend last. 

Then a snivelling little chap in a corner, who was 
always under some punishment or other, set up a shrill 
cry of “ Success to Old Cheeseman ! Hoorray ! ” The 
Reverend glared upon him, and said, “ Mr. Cheeseman, 
Sir.” But, Old Cheeseman protesting that he liked his 
old name a great deal better than his new one, all 
our fellows took up the cry ; and, for I don’t know how 
many minutes, there was such a thundering of feet and 
hands, and such a roaring of Old Cheeseman, as never 
was heard. 

After that, there was a spread in the dining-room of 
the most magnificent kind. Fowls, tongues, preserves, 
fruits, confectionaries, jellies, neguses, barley-sugar tem- 
ples, trifles, crackers — eat all you can and pocket what 
you like — all at Old Cheeseman’s expense. After that, 
speeches, whole holiday, double and treble sets of all 
manners of things for all manners of games, donkeys, 
pony-chais^ and drive yourself, dinner for all the mas- 
ters of the Seven Bells (twenty pounds a-head our fel- 
lows estimated it at), an anntial holiday and feast fixed 
for that .day every year, and another on Old Cheese- 
man’s birthday — Reverend bound down before the fel- 
lows to allow it, so that he could never back out — all at 
Old Cheeseman’s expense. 

And didn’t our fellows go down in a body and cheer 
outside the Seven Bells ? O no ! 

But there’s something else besides. Don’t look at the 


THE SCHOOLBOY’S STORY 


107 


next story-teller, for there’s more yet. Next day, it was 
resolved that the Society she tld make it up with Jane, 
and then be dissolved. What do you think of Jane be- 
ing gone, though ! “ What ? Gone forever ? ” said our 

fellows, with long faces. “ Yes, to be sure,” was all the 
answer they could get. None of the people about the 
house would say anything more. At length, the first 
boy took upon himself to ask the Reverend whether our 
old friend Jane was really gone ? The Reverend (he 
has got a daughter at home — turn-up nose, and red) re- 
plied severely, “Yes, sir, Miss Pitt is gone.” The idea 
of calling Jane, Miss Pitt ! Some said she had been 
sent away in disgraee for taking money from Old Cheese- 
man ; others said she had gone into Old Cheeseman’s 
service at a rise of ten pounds a year. All that our 
fellows knew, was, she was gone. 

It was two or three months afterwards, when, one 
afternoon, an open carriage stopped at the cricket field, 
just outside bounds, with a lady and gentleman in it, 
who looked at the game a long time and stood up to see 
it played. Nobody thought much about them, until the 
same little snivelling chap came in, against all rules, 
from the post where he was Scout, and said, “ It’s Jane ! ” 
Both Elevens forgot the game directly, and ran crowding 
round the carriage. It was Jane ! In such a bonnet ! 
And if you’ll believe me, Jane was married to Old 
Cheeseman. 

It soon became quite a regular thing when our fellows 
were hard at it in the playground, to see a carriage at 
*he low part of the wall where it joins the high part, and 
a lady and gentleman standing up in it, looking over. 
The gentleman was always Old Cheeseman, and the lady 
was always Jane. 


108 


THE SCHOOLBOY’S STORY. 


The first time I ever saw them, I saw them in that 
way. There had been a good many changes among our 
fellows then, and it had turned out that Bob Tarter’s 
father wasn’t worth Millions ! He wasn’t worth any- 
thing. Bob had gone for a soldier, and Old Clieeseman 
had purchased his discharge. But that’s not the carriage. 
The carriage stopped, and all our fellows stopped as soon 
as it was seen. 

“ So you have never sent me to Coventry after all ! ” 
said the lady, laughing, as our fellows swarmed up the 
wall to shake hands with her. “ Are you never going to 
do it ? ” 

“ Never ! never ! never ! ” on all sides. 

I didn’t understand what she meant then, but of course 
I do now. I was very much pleased with her face though, 
and with her good way, and I couldn’t help looking at 
her — and at him too — with all our fellows clustering 
so joyfully about them. 

They soon took notice of me as a new boy, so I thought 
I might as well swarm up the wall myself, and shake 
hands with them as the rest did. I was quite as glad to 
see them as the rest were, and was quite as familiar with 
them in a moment. 

“ Only a fortnight now,” said Old Clieeseman, “ to the 
holidays. Who stops ? Anybody ? ” 

A good many fingers pointed at me, and a good many 
voices cried, “ He does!” For it was the year when 
you were all away ; and rather low I was about it, I can 
tell you. 

“ Oh ! ” said Old Cheeseman. “ But it’s solitary here • 
in the holiday time. He had better come to us.” 

So I went to their delightful house, and was as happy 
as I could possibly be. They understand how to con- 


THE SCHOOLBOY’S STORY. 


109 


duct themselves towards boys, they do. When they take 
a boy to the play, for instance, they do take him. They 
don’t go in after it’s begun, or come out before it’s over. 
They know how to bring a boy up, too. Look at their 
own ! Though he is very little as yet, what a capital 
boy he is ! Why, my next favorite to Mrs. Cheeseman 
and Old Cheeseman, is young Cheeseman. 

So, now I have told you all I know about Old Cheese- 
man. And it’s not much after all, I am afraid. Is it ? 






NOBODY’S STORY. 


• 

He lived on the bank of a mighty river, broad and 
deep, which was always silently rolling on to a vast un- 
discovered ocean. It had rolled on ever since the world 
began. It had changed its course sometimes, and turned 
into new channels, leaving its old ways dry and barren ; 
but it had ever been upon the flow, and ever was to flow 
until Time should be no more. Against its strong, un- 
fathomable stream, nothing made head. No living creat- 
ure, no flower, no leaf, no particle of animate or inani- 
mate existence, ever strayed back from the undiscovered 
ocean. The tide of the river set resistlessly towards it ; 
and the tide never stopped, any more than the earth stops 
in its circling round the sun. 

He lived in a busy place, and he worked very hard to 
live. He had no hope of ever being rich enough to live 
a month without hard work, but he was quite content, 
God knows, to labor with a cheerful will. He was one 
of an immense family, all of whose sons and daughters 
gained their daily bread by daily work, prolonged from 
their rising up betimes until their lying down at night. 
Beyond this destiny he had no prospect, and he sought 
none. 

There was over-mu 2h drumming, trumpeting, and 
speech-making, in the neighborhood where he dwelt ; 


NOBODY’S STORY. 


Ill 


but he had nothing to do with that. Such clash and 
uproar came from the Bigwig family, at the unaccounta- 
ble proceedings of which race, he marvelled much. They 
set up the strangest statues, in iron, marble, bronze, and 
brass, before his door ; and darkened his house with the 
legs and tails of uncouth images of horses. He won- 
dered what it all meant, smiled in a rough good-humored 
way he had, and kept at his hard work. 

The Bigwig family (composed of all the stateliest 
people thereabouts, and all the noisiest) had undertaken 
to save him the trouble of thinking for himself, and to 
manage him and his affairs. “ Why truly,” said he, “ I 
have little time upon my hands ; and if you will be so 
good as to take care of me, in return for the money I 
pay over ” — for the Bigwig family were not above his 
money — “I shall be relieved and much obliged, con- 
sidering that you know best.” Hence the drumming, 
trumpeting, and speech-making, and the ugly images of 
horses which he was expected to fall down and wor- 
ship. 

“ I don’t understand all this,” said he, rubbing his 
furrowed brow confusedly. “ But it has a meaning, 
maybe, if I could find it out.” 

“It means,” returned the Bigwig family, suspecting 
something of what he said, “ honor and glory in the 
highest, to the highest merit.” 

“ Oh ! ” said he. And he was glad to hear that. 

But, when he looked among the images in iron, mar- 
ble, bronze, and brass, he failed to find a rather meritori- 
ous countryman of his, once the son of a Warwickshire 
wool-dealer, or any single countryman whomsoever of 
that kind. He could find none of the men whose knowl- 
edge had rescued him and his children from terrific and 


112 


NOBODY’S STORY. 


disfiguring disease, whose boldness had raised his fore- 
fathers from the condition of serfs, whose wise fancy had 
opened a new and high existence to the humblest, whose 
skill had filled the working man’s world with accumu- 
lated wonders. Whereas, he did find others whom he 
knew no good of, and even others whom he knew mucl 
ill of. 

“ Humph ! ” said he. “ I don’t quite understand it.” 

So, he went home, and sat down by his fireside to get 
it out of his mind. 

Now, his fireside was a bare one, all hemmed in by 
blackened streets ; but it was a precious place to him. 
The hands of his wife were hardened with toil, and she 
was old before her time ; but she was dear to him. His 
children, stunted in their growth, bore traces of unwhole- 
some nurture ; but they had beauty in his sight. Above 
all other things, it was an earnest desire of this man’s 
soul that his children should be taught. “ If I am some- 
times misled,” said he, “ for want of knowledge, at least 
let them know 7 better, and avoid my mistakes. If it is 
hard to me to reap the harvest of pleasure and instruc- 
tion that is stored in books, let it be easier to them.” 

But, the Bigwig family broke out into violent family 
quarrels concerning what it w r as lawful to teach to this 
man’s children. Some of the family insisted on such a 
thing being primary and indispensable above all othei 
things ; and others of the family insisted on such another 
thing being primary and indispensable above all other 
things ; and the Bigwig family, rent into factions, wrote 
pamphlets, held convocations, delivered charges, orations, 
and all varieties of discourses ; impounded one another 
in courts Lay and courts Ecclesiastical ; threw dirt, 
exchanged pummellings, and fell together by the ears in 


NOBODY'S STORY. 


113 


unintelligible animosity. Meanwhile, this man, in his 
short evening snatches at his fireside, saw the demon 
Ignorance arise there, and take his children to itself. 
He saw his daughter perverted into a heavy slatternly 
drudge ; he saw his son go moping down the ways of 
low sensuality, to brutality and crime ; he saw the dawn- 
ing light of intelligence in the eyes of his babies so 
changing into cunning and suspicion, that he could have 
rather wished them idiots. 

“ I don’t understand this any the better,” said he ; 
“but I think it cannot be right. Nay, by the clouded 
Heaven above me, I protest against this as my wrong ! ” 

Becoming peaceable again (for his passion was usually 
short-lived, and his nature kind), he looked about him on 
his Sundays and holidays, and he saw how much monot- 
ony and weariness there was, and thence how drunken- 
ness arose with all its train of ruin. Then he appealed 
to the Bigwig family, and said, “We are a laboring peo- 
ple, and I have a glimmering suspicion in me that labor- 
ing people of whatever condition were made — by a 
higher intelligence than yours, as I poorly understand it 
— to be in need of mental refreshment and recreation. 
See what we fall into, when we rest without it. Come ! 
Amuse me harmlessly, show me something, give me an 
escape ! ” 

But, here the Bigwig family fell into a state of uproar 
absolutely deafening. When some few voices were 
faintly heard, proposing to show him the wonders of the 
world, the greatness of creation, the mighty changes of 
time, the workings of nature and the beauties of art — 
to show him these things, that is to say, at any period of 
his life when he could look upon them — there arose 
among the Bigwigs sue. roaring and raving, such pulpit- 

S 


VOL. II. 


114 


NOBODY’S STORY. 


ing and petitioning, such maundering and memorializing, 
such name-calling and dirt-throwing, such a shrill wind 
of parliamentary questioning and feeble replying — 
where “ I dare not ” waited on “ I would ” — that the 
poor fellow stood aghast, staring wildly around. 

“ Have I provoked all this,” said he, with his hands t; 
his affrighted ears, “ by what was meant to be an inno- 
cent request, plainly arising out of my familiar expe- 
rience, and the common knowledge of all men who 
choose to open their eyes ? I don’t understand, and I 
am not understood. What is to come of such a state of 
things ! ” 

He was bending over his work, often asking himself 
the question, when the news began to spread that a pes- 
tilence had appeared among the laborers, and was slay- 
ing them by thousands. Going forth to look about him, 
he soon found this to be true. The dying and the dead 
were mingled in the close and tainted houses among 
which his life was passed. New poison was distilled into 
the always murky, always sickening air. The robust and 
the w T eak, old age and infancy, the father and the mother, 
all were stricken down alike. 

What means of flight had he ? He remained there, 
where he was, and saw those who were dearest to him 
die. A kind preacher came to him, and would have said 
some prayers to soften his heart in his gloom, but he 
replied : 

“ O what avails it, missionary, to come to me, a man 
condemned to residence in this fetid place, where every 
sense bestowed upon me for my delight becomes a tor- 
ment, and where every minute of my numbered days is 
new mire added to the heap under which I lie oppressed ! 
But, give me my first glimpse of Heaven, through a little 


NOBODY’S STORY. 


115 


of its light and air ; give me pure water ; help me to be 
clean ; lighten this heavy atmosphere and heavy life, in 
which our spirits sink, and we become the indifferent and 
callous creatures you too often see us ; gently and kindly 
take the bodies of those who die among us, out of the 
small room where we grow to be so familiar with the 
awful change that even its sanctity is lost to us ; and, 
Teacher, then I will hear — none know better than you, 
how willingly — of Him whose thoughts were so much 
with the poor, and who had compassion for all human 
sorrow ! ” 

He was at his work again, solitary and sad, when his 
Master came and stood near to him dressed in black. 
He, also, had suffered heavily. His young wife, his 
beautiful and good young wife, was dead ; so, too, his 
only child. 

“ Master, ’tis hard to bear — I know it — but be com- 
forted. I would give you comfort, if I could.” 

The Master thanked him from his heart, but, said he, 
u O you laboring men ! The calamity began among you. 
If you had but lived more healthily and decently, I 
should not be the widowed and bereft mourner that I am 
this day.” 

“Master,” returned the other, shaking his head, “I 
have begun to understand a little that most calamities 
will come from us, as this one did, and that none will 
stop at our poor doors, until we are united with that 
great squabbling family yonder, to do the things that are 
right. We cannot live healthily and decently, unless 
they who undertook to manage us provide the means. 
We cannot be instructed unless they will teach us ; we 
2annot be rationally amused, unless they will amuse us ; 
we cannot but have some false gods of our own, while 


116 


NOBODY’S STORY. 


they set up so many of theirs in all the public places. 
The evil consequences of imperfect instruction, the evil 
consequences of pernicious neglect, the evil consequences 
of unnatural restraint and the denial of humanizing en- 
joyments, will all come from us, and none of them will stop 
with us. They will spread far and wide. They always 
do; they always have done — just like the pestilence. 
I understand so much, I think, at last.” 

But the Master said again, “ O you laboring men ! 
How seldom do we ever hear of you, except in connection 
with some trouble ! ” 

“ Master,” he replied, “ I am Nobody, and little likely 
to be heard of (nor yet much wanted to be heard of, 
perhaps), except when there is some trouble. But it 
never begins with me, and it never can end with me. As 
sure as Death, it comes down to me, and it goes up from 
me.” 

There was so much reason in what he said, that the 
Bigwig family, getting wind of it, and being horribly 
frightened by the late desolation, resolved to unite with 
him to do the things that were right — at all events, so 
far as the said things were associated with the direct pre- 
vention, humanly speaking, of another pestilence. But, 
as their fear wore off, which it soon began to do, they 
resumed their falling out among themselves, and did 
nothing. Consequently the scourge appeared again — 
low down as before — and spread avengingly upward as 
before, and carried off vast numbers of the brawlers. 
But not a man among them ever admitted, if in the least 
degree he ever perceived, that he had anything to do 
with it. 

So Nobody lived and died in the old, old, old way ; 
and tills, in the main, is the whole of Nobody’s story. 


NOBODY’S STORY. 


117 


Had he no name, you ask ? Perhaps it was Legion. 
It matters little what his name was. Let us call him 
Legion. 

If you were ever in the Belgian villages near the field 
of Waterloo, you will have seen, in some quiet little 
church, a monument erected by faithful companions in 
arms to the memory of Colonel A, Major B, Captains C, 
D, and E, Lieutenants F and G, Ensigns H, I, and J, 
seven non-commissioned officers, and one hundred and 
thirty rank and file, who fell in the discharge of their 
duty on the memorable day. The story of Nobody is 
the story of the rank and file of the earth. They bear 
their share of the battle ; they have their part in the 
victory ; they fall ; they leave no name but in the mass. 
The march of the proudest of us, leads to the dusty way 
by which they go. 0 ! Let us think of them this year 
at the Christmas fire, and not forget them when it is 
burnt out. 


THE GHOST OF ART. 


♦— 

I am a bachelor, residing in rather a dreary set of 
chambers in the Temple. They are situated in a square 
court of high houses, which would be a complete well, 
but for the want of water and the absence of a bucket. 
I live at the top of the house, among the tiles and spar- 
rows. Like the little man in the nursery-story, I live by 
myself, and all the bread and cheese I get — which is not 
much — I put upon a shelf. I need scarcely add, per- 
haps, that I am in love, and that the father of my charm- 
ing Julia objects to our union. 

I mention these little particulars as I might deliver a 
letter of introduction. The reader is now acquainted 
with me, and perhaps will condescend to listen to my 
narrative. 

I am naturally of a dreamy turn of mind; and my 
abundant leisure — for I am called to the bar — coupled 
with much lonely listening to the twittering of sparrows, 
and the pattering of rain, has encouraged that disposition. 
In my “top set,” I hear the wind howl, on a winter 
night, when the man on the ground floor believes it is 
perfectly still weather. The dim lamps with which our 
Honorable Society (supposed to be as yet unconscious of 
the new discovery called Gas) make the horrors of the 
staircase visible, deepen the gloom which generally set- 
tles on my soul when I go home at night. 


THE GHOST OF ART. 


119 


I am in the Law, but not of it. I can’t exactly make 
out what it means. I sit in Westminster Hall some- 
times (in character) from ten to four; and when I go 
out of Court, I don’t know whether I am standing on my 
wig or my boots. 

It appears to me (I mention this in confidence) as if 
there were too much talk and too much law — as if some 
grains of truth were started overboard into a tempestu- 
ous sea of chaff. 

All this may make me mystical. Still, I am confident 
that what I am going to describe myself as having seen 
and heard, I actually did see and hear. 

It is necessary that I should observe that I have a 
great delight in pictures. I am no painter myself, but I 
have studied pictures and written about them. I have 
seen all the most famous pictures in the world ; my edu- 
cation and reading have been sufficiently general to pos- 
sess me beforehand with a knowledge of most of the 
subjects to which a Painter is likely to have recourse ; 
and, although I might be in some doubt as to the right- 
ful fashion of the scabbard of King Lear’s sword, for 
instance, I think I should know King Lear tolerably 
well, if I happened to meet with him. 

I go to all the Modern Exhibitions every season, and 
of course I revere the Royal Academy. I stand by its 
forty Academical articles almost as firmly as I stand by 
the thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. I 
am convinced that in neither case could there be, by any 
rightful possibility, one article more or less. 

It is now exactly three years — three years ago this 
very month — since I went from Westminster to the 
Temple, one Thursday afternoon, in a cheap steamboat. 
The sky was black, when I imprudently walked on 


120 


THE GHOST OF ART. 


board. Tt began to thunder and lighten immediately 
afterwards, and the rain poured down in torrents. The 
deck seeming to smoke with the wet, I went below ; but 
so many passengers were there, smoking too, that I came 
up again, and buttoning my pea-coat, and standing in the 
shadow of the paddle-box, stood as upright as I could, 
and made the best of it. 

It was at this moment that I first beheld the terrible 
Being, who is the subject of my present recollections. 

Standing against the funnel, apparently with the in- 
tention of drying himself by the heat as fast as he got 
wet, was a shabby man in threadbare black, and with his 
hands in his pockets, who fascinated me from the memor- 
able instant when I caught his eye. 

Where had I caught that eye before ? Who was he ? 
Why did I connect him, all at once, with the Vicar of 
Wakefield, Alfred the Great, Gil Bias, Charles the Sec- 
ond, Joseph and his Brethren, the Fairy Queen, Tom 
Jones, the Decameron of Boccaccio, Tam O’Shanter, the 
Marriage of the Doge of Venice with the Adriatic, and 
the Great Plague of London ? Why, when he bent one 
leg, and placed one hand upon the back of the seat near 
him, did my mind associate him wildly with the words, 
“ Number one hundred and forty-two, Portrait of a gen- 
tleman ? ” Could it be that I was going mad ? 

I looked at him again, and now I could have taken my 
ffidavit that he belonged to the Vicar of Wakefield’s 
amily. Whether he was the Vicar, or Moses, or Mr. 
Burchill, or the Squire, or a conglomeration of all four, 
I knew not; but I was impelled to seize him by the 
throat, and charge him with being, in some fell way, 
connected with the Primrose blood. He looked up at 
the rain, and then — oh Heaven ! — he became Saint 


THE GHOST OF ART. 


121 


John. He folded his arms, resigning himself to the 
weather, and I was frantically inclined to address him 
as the Spectator, and firmly demand to know what he 
had done with Sir Roger de Coverley. 

The frightful suspicion that I was becoming deranged, 
returned upon me with redoubled force. Meantime, this 
awful stranger, inexplicably linked to my distress, stood 
drying himself at the funnel ; and ever, as the steam 
rose from his clothes, diffusing a mist around him, I saw 
through the ghostly medium all the people I have men- 
tioned, and a score more, sacred and profane. 

I am conscious of a dreadful inclination that stole upon 
me, as it thundered and lightened, to grapple with this 
man, or demon, and plunge him over the side. But, I 
constrained myself — I know not how — to speak to 
him, and in a pause of the storm, I crossed the deck, 
and said: 

“ What are you ? ” 

He replied, hoarsely, “ A Model.” 

“ A what ? ” said I. 

“ A Model,” he replied. “ I sets to the profession for 
a bob a-hour.” (All through this narrative I give his 
own words, which are indelibly imprinted on my mem- 

ary-) 

The relief which this disclosure gave me, the exquisite 
delight of the restoration of my confidence in my own 
anity, I cannot describe. I should have fallen on his 
eck, but for the consciousness of being observed by the 
man at the wheel. 

“ You then,” said I, shaking him so warmly by the 
hand, that I wrung the rain out of his coat-cuff, “ are the 
gentleman whom I have so frequently contemplated, in 
connection with a high-backed chair with a red cushion, 
and a table with twisted legs.” 


122 


THE GHOST OF ART. 


“ I am that Model,” he rejoined moodily, “ and I wish 
I was anything else.” 

“ Say not so,” I returned. “ I have seen yon in the 
society of many beautiful young women ; ” as in truth I 
had, and always (I now remember) in the act of making 
the most of his legs. 

“ No doubt,” said he. “ And you’ve seen me along 
with warses of dowers, and any number of table -ki vers, 
ind antique cabinets, and warious gammon.” 

“ Sir ? ” said I. 

“ And warious gammon,” he repeated, in a louder 
voice. “ You. might have seen me in armor, too, if you 
had looked sharp. Blessed if I ha’n’t stood in half the suits 
of armor as ever came out of Pratt’s shop : and sat, for 
weeks together, a-eating nothing, out of half the gold 
and silver dishes as has ever been lent for the purpose 
out of Storrses, and Mortimerses, or Garrardses, and 
Davenportseseses.” 

Excited, as it appeared, by a sense of injury, I thought 
he never would have found an end for the last word. 
But, at length it rolled sullenly away with the thunder. 

“ Pardon me,” said I, “ you are a well-favored, well- 
made man, and yet — forgive me — I find, on examining 
my mind, that I associate you with — that my recollec- 
tion indistinctly makes you, in short — excuse me — a 
kind of powerful monster.” 

“ It would be a wonder if it didn’t,” he said. “ Do yon 
know what my points are ? ” 

“ No,” said I. 

“ My throat and my legs,” said he. “ When I don’t 
set for a head, I mostly sets for a throat and a pair of 
legs. Now, granted you was a painter, and was to work 
at my throat for a week together, I suppose you’d see a 


THE GHOST OF ART. 


123 


lot of lumps and bumps there, that would never be there 
at all, if you looked at me, complete, instead of only my 
throat. Wouldn’t you ? ” 

“ Probably,” said I, surveying him. 

“ Why, it stands to reason,” said the Model. “Work 
another week at my legs, and it’ll be the same thing 
You’ll make ’em out as knotty and as knobby, at last, a. 
if they was the trunks of two old trees. Then, take and 
stick my legs and throat on to another man’s body, and 
you’ll make a reg’lar monster. And that’s the way the 
public gets their reg’lar monsters, every first Monday in 
May, when the Royal Academy Exhibition opens.” 

“ You are a critic,” said I, with an air of deference. 

“ I’m in an uncommon ill-humor, if that’s it,” rejoined 
the Model, with great indignation. “ As if it warn’t bad 
enough for a bob a-hour, for a man to be mixing himself 
up with that jolly old furniter that one ’ud think the 
public know’d the wery nails in by this time — or to be 
putting on greasy old ats and cloaks, and playing tam- 
bourines in the Bay o’ Naples, with Wesuvius a smokin’ 
according to pattern in the background, and the wines a 
bearing wonderful in the middle distance — or to be un- 
politely kicking up his legs among a lot o’ gals, with no 
reason whatever in his mind but to show ’em — as if this 
warn’t bad enough, I’m to go and be thrown out of em- 
ployment too ! ” 

“ Surely no ! ” said I. 

“ Surely yes,” said the indignant Model. “ But I’li 
GROW ONE.” 

The gloomy and threatening manner in which he 
muttered the last words, can never be effaced from my 
remembrance. My blood ran cold. 

I asked of myself, what was it that this desperate 


124 


THE GHOST OF ART. 


Being was resolved to grow ? My breast made no re* 
sponse. 

I ventured to implore him to explain his meaning. 
With a scornful laugh, he uttered this dark prophecy : 

“ I’ll grow one. And, mark my words, it shall 

HAUNT YOU ! ” 

We parted in the storm, after I had forced half a crown 
on his acceptance, with a trembling hand. I conclude 
that something supernatural happened to the steamboat, 
as it bore his reeking figure down the river ; but it never 
got into the papers. 

Two years elapsed, during which I followed my pro- 
fession without any vicissitudes ; never holding so much 
as a motion of course. At the expiration of that period, 
I found myself making my way home to the Temple one 
night, in precisely such another storm of thunder and 
lightning as that by which I had been overtaken on 
board the steamboat — except that this storm, bursting 
over the town at midnight, was rendered much more 
awful by the darkness and the hour. 

As I turned into my court, I really thought a thunder- 
bolt would fall and plough the pavement up. Every 
brick and stone in the place seemed to have an echo of 
its own for the thunder. The waterspouts were over- 
charged, and the rain came tearing down from the house- 
tops as if they had been mountain-tops. 

Mrs. Parkins, my laundress — wife of Parkins the 
porter, then newly dead of a dropsy — had particular 
instructions to place a bedroom candle and a match under 
the staircase lamp on my landing, in order that I might 
light my candle there, whenever I came home. Mrs. 
Parkins invariably disregarding all instructions, they were 
never there. Thus it happened that on this occasion I 


v 


THE GHOST OF ART. 


125 




groped my way into my sitting-room to find the candle, 
and came out to light it. 

What were my emotions when, underneath the stair- 
case lamp, shining with wet as if he had never been dry 
since our last meeting, stood the mysterious Being whom 
I had encountered on the steamboat in a thunder-storm 
two years before ! His prediction rushed upon my mind 
and I turned faint. 

“ I said I’d do it,” he observed, in a hollow voice, “ and 
I have done it. May I come in ? ” 

“ Misguided creature, what have you done ? ” I re- 
turned. 

“ I’ll let you know,” was his reply, “ if you’ll let me 
in.” 

Could it be murder that he had done ? And had he 
been so successful that he wanted to do it again, at my 
expense ? 

I hesitated. 

“ May I come in ? ” said he. 

I inclined my head, with as much presence of mind as 
I could command, and he followed me into my chambers. 
There, I saw that the lower part of his face was tied up, 
in what is commonly called a Belcher handkerchief. He 
slowly removed this bandage, and exposed to view a long 
dark beard, curling over his upper lip, twisting about 
the corners of his mouth, and hanging down upon his 
breast. 

“ What is this ? ” I exclaimed involuntarily, “ and what 
have you become ? ” 

“ I am the Ghost of Art ! ” said he. 

The effect of these words, slowly uttered in the thun- 
der-storm at midnight, was appalling in the last degree. 
More dead than alive, I surveyed him in silence. 


126 


THE GHOST OF ART. 


“ The German taste came up,” said he, “ and threw 
me out of bread. I am ready for the taste new.” 

He made his beard a little jagged with his hands, 
folded his arms, and said : 

“ Severity ! ” 

I shuddered. It was so severe. 

He made his beard flowing on his brea. it, and, leaning 
both hands on the staff of a carpet-broom which Mrs. 
Parkins had left among my books, said : 

“ Benevolence.” 

I stood transfixed. The change of sentiment was 
entirely in the beard. The man might have left his 
face alone, or had no face. The beard did everything. 

He lay down, on his back, on my table, and with that 
action of his head threw up his beard at the chin. 

“ That’s death ! ” said he. 

He got off my table, and looking up at the ceiling, 
cocked his beard a little awry ; at the same time making 
it stick out before him. 

“ Adoration, or a vow of vengeance,” he observed. 

He turned his profile to me, making his upper lip very 
bulgy with the upper part of his beard. 

“ Romantic character,” said he. 

He looked sideways out of his beard, as if it were an 
ivy-bush. “Jealousy,” said he. He gave it an ingen- 
ious twist in the air, and informed me that he was carous- 
ing. He made it shaggy with his fingers — and it was 
Despair ; lank — and, it was avarice ; tossed it all kinds 
of ways — and it was rage. The beard did everything. 

“ I am the Ghost of Art,” said he. “ Two bob a-day 
now, and more when it’s longer ! Hair’s the true ex- 
pression. There is no other. I said I’d grow it, and 
I’ve grown it, and it shall haunt you ! ” 


THE GHOST OF ART. 


127 


He may have tumbled down stairs in the dark, but he 
never walked down nor ran down. I looked over the 
banisters, and I was alone with the thunder. 

Need I add more of my terrific fate ? It has haunted 
me ever since. It glares upon me from the walls of the 
Royal Academy, (except when Maclise subdues it to 
his genius,) it fills my soul with terror at the British In 
stitution, it lures young artists on to their destruction. 
Go where I will, the Ghost of Art, eternally working the 
passions in hair, and expressing everything by beard, 
pursues me. The prediction is accomplished, and the 
victim has no rest. 


OUT OF TOWN. 


1 

Sitting, on a bright September morning, among my 

V. 

books and papers at my open window on the cliff over- 
hanging the sea-beach, I have the sky and ocean framed 
before me like a beautiful picture. A beautiful picture, 
but with such movement in it, such changes of light upon 
the sails of ships and wake of steamboats, such daz- 
zling gleams of silver far out at sea, such fresh touches 
on the crisp wave-tops as they break and roll towards 
me — a picture with such music in the billowy rush 
upon the shingle, the blowing of the morning wind 
through the corn-sheaves where the farmers’ wagons 
are busy, the singing of the larks, and the distant voices 
of children at play — such charms of sight and sound as 
all the Galleries on earth can but poorly suggest. 

So dreamy is the murmur of the sea below my win- 
dow, that I may have been here, for anything I know, 
one hundred years. Not that I have grown old, for, 
daily on the neighboring downs and grassy hill-sides, I 
find that I can still in reason walk any distance, jump over 
anything, and climb up anywhere ; but, that the sound 
of the ocean seems to have become so customary to mv 
m usings, and other realities seem so to have gone a-board 
ship and floated away over the horizon, that, for aught I 
will undertake to the contrary, I am the enchanted son 


OUT OF TOWN. 


129 


of the King my father, shut up in a tower on the sea- 
shore, for protection against an old she-goblin who in- 
sisted on being my godmother, and who foresaw at the 
font — wonderful creature ! — that I should get into a 
scrape before I was twenty-one. I remember to have 
been in a City (my Royal parent’s dominions, I suppose) 
and apparently not long ago either, that was in the 
dreariest condition. The principal inhabitants had all 
been changed into old newspapers, and in that form were 
preserving their window-blinds from dust, and wrapping 
all their smaller household gods in curl-papers. I walked 
through gloomy streets where every house was shut up 
and newspapered, and where my solitary footsteps echoed 
on the deserted pavements. In the public rides there 
were no carriages, no horses, no animated existence, but 
a few sleepy policemen, and a few adventurous boys tak- 
ing advantage of the devastation to swarm up the lamp- 
posts. In the Westward streets there was no traffic ; in 
the Westward shops, no business. The water-patterns 
which the ’Prentices had trickled out on the pavements 
early in the morning, remained uneffaced by human feet. 
At the corners of mews, Cochin-China fowls stalked 
gaunt and savage ; nobody being left in the deserted city 
(as it appeared to me), to feed them. Public Houses, 
where splendid footmen swinging their legs over gor- 
geous hammer-cloths beside wigged coachmen were wont 
to regale, were silent, and the unused pewter pots shone, 
too bright for business, on the shelves. I beheld a 
Punch’s Show leaning against a wall near Park Lane, 
as if it had fainted. It was deserted, and there w r ere 
none to heed its desolation. In Belgrave Square I met 
rhe last man — an ostler — sitting on a post in a ragged 
*ed waistcoat, eating straw, and mildewing away. 

9 


VOL. II. 


130 


OUT OF TOWN. 


If I recollect the name of the little town, on whose 
shore this sea is murmuring — but I am not just now, as 
I have premised, to be relied upon for anything — it is 
Pavilionstone. Within a quarter of a century, it was a 
little fishing town, and they do say, that the time was, 
when it was a little smuggling town. I have heard that 
it was rather famous in the hollands and brandy way, 
and that coevally with that reputation the lamplighter’s 
was considered a bad life at the Assurance offices. It 
was observed that if he were not particular about light- 
ing up, he lived in peace ; but, that if he made the best 
of the oil-lamps in the steep and narrow streets, he usu- 
ally fell over the cliff at an early age. Now, gas and 
electricity run to the very water’s edge, and the South 
Eastern Railway Company screech at us in the dead of 
night. 

But, the old little fishing and smuggling town remains, 
and is so tempting a place for the latter purpose, that I 
think of going out some night next week, in a fur cap 
and a pair of petticoat trousers, and running an empty 
tub, as a kind of archaeological pursuit. Let nobody 
with corns come to Pavilionstone, or there are break- 
neck flights of ragged steps, connecting the principal 
streets by back-ways, which will cripple that visitor in 
half an hour. These are the ways by which, when I run 
that tub, I shall escape. I shall make a Thermopylae of 
the corner of one of them, defend it with my cutlass 
against the coast-guard until my brave companions have 
sheered off, then dive into the darkness, and regain my 
Susan’s arms. In connection with these breakneck 
steps I observe some wooden cottages, with tumble- 
down out-liouses, and back-yards three feet square, 
adorned with garlands of dried fish, in which (though 


OUT OF TOWN. 


131 


the General Board of Health might object) my Susan 
dwells. 

The South-Eastern Company have brought Pavilion- 
stone into such vogue, with their tidal trains and splendid 
steam-packets, that a new Pavilionstone is rising up. I 
am, myself, of New Pavilionstone. We are a little mor 
tary and limey at present, but we are getting on capitally 
Indeed, we were getting on so fast, at one time, that we 
rather overdid it, and built a street of shops, the business 
of which may be expected to arrive in about ten years. 
We are sensibly laid out in general; and with a little 
care and pains (by no means wanting, so far) shall be- 
come a very pretty place. We ought to be, for our situa- 
tion is delightful, our air is delicious, and our breezy hills 
and downs, carpeted with wild thyme, and decorated with 
millions of wild flowers, are, on the faith of a pedestrian, 
perfect. In New Pavilionstone we are a little too much 
addicted to small windows with more bricks in them 
than glass, and we are not over-fanciful in the way of 
decorative architecture, and we get unexpected sea-views 
through cracks in the street-doors ; on the whole, how- 
ever, we are very snug and comfortable, and well accom- 
modated. But the Home Secretary (if there be such 
an officer) cannot too soon shut up the burial-ground of 
the old parish church. It is in the midst of us, and 
Pavilionstone will get no good of it, if it be too long 
left alone. 

The lion of Pavilionstone is its Great Hotel. A dozei 
years ago, going over to Paris by South-Eastern Tidal 
Steamer, you used to be dropped upon the platform of 
the main line Pavilionstone Station (not a junction 
then), at eleven o’clock on a dark winter’s night, in a 
roaring wind ; and in the howling wilderness outside the 


132 


OUT OF TOWN. 


station, was a short omnibus which brought you up by 
the forehead the instant you got in at the door ; and no- 
body cared about you, and you were alone in the world. 
You bumped over infinite chalk, until you were turned 
out at a strange building which had just left off being a 
>arn without having quite begun to be a house, where 
nobody expected your coming, or knew what to do with 
you when you were come, and where you were usually 
blown about, until you happened to be blown against the 
cold beef, and finally into bed. At five in the morning 
you were blown out of bed, and after a dreary breakfast, 
with crumpled company, in the midst of confusion, were 
hustled on board a steamboat and lay wretched on deck 
until you saw France lunging and surging at you with 
great vehemence over the bowsprit. 

Now, you come down to Pavilionstone in a free and 
easy manner, an irresponsible agent, made over in trust 
to the South-Eastern Company, until you get out of the 
railway-carriage at high-water mark. If you are cross- 
ing by the boat at once, you have nothing to do but 
walk on board and be happy there if you can — I can't. 
If you are going to our Great Pavilionstone Hotel, the 
sprightliest porters under the sun, whose cheerful looks 
are a pleasant welcome, shoulder your luggage, drive it 
off in vans, bowl it away in trucks, and enjoy themselves 
in playing athletic games with it. If you are for pub- 
ic life at our great Pavilionstone Hotel, you walk into 
that establishment as if it were your club ; and find 
ready for you, your news-room, dining-room, smoking- 
room, billiard-room, music-room, public breakfast, public 
dinner twice a-day (one plain, one gorgeous), hot baths • 
and cold baths. If you want to be bored, there are 
plenty of bores always ready for you, and from Satur- 


OUT OF TOWN. 


133 


day to Monday in particular, you can be bored (if you 
like it) through and through. Should you want to be 
private at our Great Pavilionstone Hotel, say but the 
word, look at the list of charges, choose your floor, name 
your figure — there you are, established in your castle 
by the day, week, month, or year, innocent of all comers 
or goers, unless you have my fancy for walking early in 
the morning down the groves of boots and shoes, which 
so regularly flourish at all the chamber-doors before 
breakfast, that it seems to me as if nobody ever got up 
or took them in. Are you going across the Alps, and 
would you like to air your Italian at our Great Pavilion- 
stone Hotel ? Talk to the Manager — always conver- 
sational, accomplished, and polite. Do you want to be 
aided, abetted, comforted, or advised, at our Great Pavil- 
ionstone Hotel ? Send for the good landlord, and he is 
your friend. Should you, or any one belonging to you, 
ever be taken ill at our Great Pavilionstone Hotel, you 
will not soon forget him or his kind wife. And when 
you pay your bill at our Great Pavilionstone Hotel, 
you will not be put out of humor by anything you find 
in it. 

A thoroughly good inn, in the days of coaching and 
posting, was a noble place. But, no such inn would have 
been equal to the reception of four or five hundred peo- 
ple, all of them wet through, and half of them dead sick, 
every day in the year. This is where we shine, in our 
Pavilionstone Hotel. Again — who, coming and going, 
pitching and tossing, boating and training, hurrying in, 
and flying out, could ever have calculated the fees to be 
paid at an old-fashioned house ? In our Pavilionstone 
Hotel vocabulary, there is no such word as fee. Every- 
thing is done for you ; every service is provided at a 


134 


OUT OF TOWN. 


fixed and reasonable charge ; all the prices are hung up 
in all the rooms ; and you can make out your own bill 
beforehand as well as the book-keeper. 

In the case of your being a pictorial artist, desirous of 
studying at small expense the physiognomies and beards 
of different nations, come, on receipt of this, to Pavilion- 
stone. You shall find all the nations of the earth, and 
all the styles of shaving and not shaving, hair-cutting 
and hair letting alone, forever flowing through our hotel. 
Couriers you shall see by hundreds ; fat leathern bags 
for five-franc pieces, closing with violent snaps, like dis- 
charges of fire-arms, by thousands ; more luggage in a 
morning than, fifty years ago, all Europe saw in a week. 
Looking at trains, steamboats, sick travellers, and lug- 
gage, is our great Pavilionstone recreation. We are not 
strong in other public amusements. We have a Literary 
and Scientific Institution, and we have a Working Men’s 
Institution — may it hold many gypsy holidays in sum- 
mer fields, with the kettle boiling, the band of music 
playing, and the people dancing ; and may I be on the 
hill-side, looking on with pleasure at a wholesome sight 
too rare in England ! — and we have two or three 
churches, and more chapels than I have yet added up. 
But public amusements are scarce with us. If a poor 
theatrical manager comes with his company to give us, 
in a loft, Mary Bax, or the Murder on the Sand Hills, 
we don’t care much for him — starve him out, in fact. 
We take more kindly to wax-work, especially if it moves 
in which case it keeps much clearer of the second com- 
mandment than when it is still. Cooke’s Circus (Mr. 
Cooke is my friend, and always leaves a good name be- 
hind him), gives us only a night in passing through. 
Nor does the travelling menagerie think us worth a 


OUT OF TOWN. 


135 


longer visit. It gave us a look-in the other day, bring- 
ing with it the residentiary van with the stained glass 
windows, which Her Majesty kept ready made at Wind 
sor Castle, until she found a suitable opportunity of sub 
mitting it for the proprietor’s acceptance. I brough 
way five wonderments from this exhibition. I hav 
vondered ever since, Whether the beasts ever do get 
used to those small places of confinement ; Whether the 
monkeys have that very horrible flavor in their free 
state ; Whether wild animals have a natural ear for 
time and tune, and therefore every four-footed creature 
began to howl in despair when the band began to play ; 
What the giraffe does with his neck when his cart is shut 
up ; and, Whether the elephant feels ashamed of him- 
self when he is brought out of his den to stand on his 
head in the presence of the whole Collection. 

We are a tidal harbor at Pavilionstone, as indeed I 
have implied already in my mention of tidal trains. At 
low water, we are a heap of mud, with an empty channel 
in it where a couple of men in big boots always shovel 
and scoop : with what exact object, I am unable to say. 
At that time, all the stranded fishing-boats turn over on 
their sides, as if they were dead marine monsters ; the 
colliers and other shipping stick disconsolate in the mud ; 
the steamers look as if their white chimneys would never 
smoke more, and their red paddles never turn again ; the 
green sea-slime and weed upon the rough stones at the 
ntrance, seem records of obsolete high tides never more 
to flow ; the flagstaff-halyards droop ; the very little 
wooden lighthouse shrinks in the idle glare of the sun. 
And here 1 may observe of the very little wooden light- 
house, that when it is lighted at night, — red and green, 
— it looks so like a medical man’s, that several distracted 


136 


OUT OF TOWN. 


husbands have at various times been found, on occasions 
of premature domestic anxiety, going round and round 
it, trying to find the Nightbell. 

But, the moment the tide begins to make, the Pavilion- 
stone Harbor begins to revive. It feels the breeze of the 
rising water before the water comes, and begins to flutter 
and stir. When the little shallow waves creep in, barelj 
over-lapping one another, the vanes at the mastheads 
wake, and become agitated. As the tide rises, the fishing- 
boats get into good spirits and dance, the flagstaff hoists 
a bright red flag, the steamboat smokes, cranes creak, 
horses and carriages dangle in the air, stray passengers 
and luggage appear. Now, the shipping is afloat, and 
comes up buoyantly, to look at the wharf. Now, the 
carts that have come down for coals, load away as hard 
as they can load. Now, the steamer smokes immensely, 
and occasionally blows at the paddle-boxes like a vapor- 
ous whale — greatly disturbing nervous loungers. Now, 
both the tide and the breeze have risen, and you are 
holding your hat on (if you want to see how the ladies 
hold their hats on, with a stay, passing over the broad 
brim and down the nose, come to Pavilionstone). Now, 
everything in the harbor splashes, dashes, and bobs. 
Now, the Down Tidal Train is telegraphed, and you 
know (without knowing how you know), that two hun- 
dred and eighty-seven people are coming. Now, the 
fishing-boats that have been out, sail in at the top of the 
tide. Now, the bell goes, and the locomotive hisses and 

shrieks, and the train comes gliding in, and the two hun- 

' # 
dred and eighty-seven come scuffling out. Now, there is 

not only a tide of water, but a tide of people, and a tide 

of luggage — all tumbling and flowing and bouncing 

about together. Now, after infinite bustle, the steamer 


OUT OF TOWN. 


1 

lO i 

. 

steams out, and we (on the Pier) are all delighted when 
she rolls as if she would roll her funnel out, and are all 
disappointed when she don’t. Now, the other steamer is 
coming in, and the Custom House prepares, and the 
wharf-laborers assemble, and the hawsers are made ready, 
and the Hotel Porters come rattling down with van an 
truck, eager to begin more Olympic games with more 
luggage. And this is the way in which we go on, down 
at Pavilionstone, every tide. And, if you want to live a 
life of luggage, or to see it lived, or to breathe sweet air 
which will send you to sleep at a moment’s notice at any 
period of the day or night, or to disport yourself upon or 
in the sea, or to scamper about Kent, or to come out of 
town for the enjoyment of all or any of these pleasures, 
come to Pavilionstone. 


OUT OF THE SEASON. 


♦ 

It fell to my lot, this last bleak Spring, to find myself 
in a watering-place out of the Season. A vicious north- 
east squall blew me into it from foreign parts, and I tar- 
ried in it alone for three days, resolved to be exceedingly 
busy. 

On the first day, I began business by looking for two 
hours at the sea, and staring the Foreign Militia out of 
countenance. Having disposed of these important en- 
gagements, I sat down at one of the two windows of my 
room, intent on doing something desperate in the way of 
literary composition, and writing a chapter of unheard-of 
excellence — with which the present essay has no con- 
nection. 

It is a remarkable quality in a watering-place out of 
the season, that everything in it will and must be looked 
at. I had no previous suspicion of this fatal truth ; but, 
the moment I sat down to write, I began to perceive it. 
E had scarcely fallen into my most promising attitude, 
vnd dipped my pen in the ink, when I found the clock 
upon the pier — a redfaced clock with a white rim — 
importuning me in a highly vexatious manner to consult 
my watch, and see how I was off for Greenwich time. 
Having no intention of making a voyage or taking an 
observation, I had not the least need of Greenwich time, 


OUT OF THE SEASON. 


139 


and could have put up with watering-place time as a suf- 
ficiently ajcurate article. The pier-clock, however, per- 
sisting, I felt it necessary to lay down my pen, compare 
my w T atch with him, and fall into a grave solicitude about 
half-seconds. I had taken up my pen again, and was 
about to commence that valuable chapter, when a Custon 
House cutter under the window requested that I would 
hold a naval review of her, immediately. 

It was impossible, under the circumstances, for any 
mental resolution, merely human, to dismiss the Custom- 
House cutter, because the shadow of her topmast fell 
upon my paper, and the vane played on the masterly 
blank chapter. I was therefore under the necessity of 
going to the other window ; sitting astride of the chair 
there, like Napoleon bivouacking in the print ; and in- 
specting the cutter as she lay, all that day, in the way of 
my chapter, 0 ! She was rigged to carry a quantity of 
canvas, but her hull was so very small that four giants 
aboard of her (three men and a boy) who were vigilantly 
scraping at her, all together, inspired me with a terror 
lest they should scrape her away. A fifth giant, who 
appeared to consider himself “ below ” — as indeed he 
was, from the waist downwards — meditated, in such 
close proximity with the little gusty chimney-pipe, that 
he seemed to be smoking it. Several boys looked on 
from the wharf, and, when the gigantic attention appeared 
to be fully occupied, one or other of these would fur 
tively swing himself in mid-air over the Custom House 
cutter, by means of a line pendant from her rigging, 
like a young spirit of the storm. Presently, a sixth 
hand brought down two little water-casks ; presently after- 
wards, a truck came, and delivered a hamper. I was 
now under an obligation to consider that the cutter was 


140 


OUT OF THE SEASON. 


going on a cruise, and to wonder where she was going, 
and when she was going, and why she was going, and at 
what date she might he expected back, and who com- 
manded her ? With these pressing questions I was fully 
occupied when the Packet, making ready to go across, 
and blowing off her spare steam, roared, “ Look at 
me ! ” 

It became a positive duty to look at the Packet pre- 
paring to go across ; aboard of which, the people newly 
come down by the railroad were hurrying in a great 
fluster. The crew had got their tarry overalls on — and 
one knew what that meant — not to mention the white 
basins, ranged in neat little piles of a dozen each, behind 
the door of the after-cabin. One lady as I looked, one 
resigning and far-seeing woman, took her basin from the 
store of crockery, as she might have taken a refreshment- 
ticket, laid herself down on deck with that utensil at her 
ear, muffled her feet in one shawl, solemnly covered her 
countenance after the antique manner with another, and 
on the completion of these preparations appeared by the 
strength of her volition to become insensible. The mail- 
bags (0 that I myself had the sea-legs of a mail-bag !) 
were tumbled aboard ; the Packet left off roaring, warped 
out, and made at the white line upon the bar. One dip, 
one roll, one break of the sea over her bows, and Moore’s 
Almanack or the sage Raphael could not have told me 
more of the state of things aboard, than I knew. 

The famous chapter was all but begun now, and would 
have been quite begun, but for the wind. It was blow 
ing stiffly from the east, and it rumbled in the chimney 
and shook the house. That was not much ; but, looking 
out into the wind’s gray eye for inspiration, I laid down 
my pen again to make the remark to myself, how em- 


OUT OF THE SEASON. 


141 


phatically everything by the sea declares that it has a 
great concern in the state of the wind. The trees blown 
all one way ; the defences of the harbor reared highest 
and strongest against the raging point ; the shingle flung 
up on the beach from the same direction ; the number of 
arrows pointed at the common enemy ; the sea tumbling 
in and rushing towards them as if it were inflamed by 
the sight. This put it in my head that I really ought to 
go out and take a walk in the wind ; so, I gave up the 
magnificent chapter for that day, entirely persuading ' 
myself that I was under a moral obligation to have a 
blow. 

I had a good one, and that on the high road — the 
very high road — on the top of the cliffs, where I met 
the stage-coach with all the outsides holding their hats 
on and themselves too, and overtook a flock of sheep 
with the wool about their necks blown into such great 
ruffs that they looked like fleecy owls. The wind played 
upon the lighthouse as if it were a great whistle, the 
spray was driven over the sea in a cloud of haze, the 
ships rolled and pitched heavily, and at intervals long 
slants and flaws of light made mountain-steeps of com- 
munication between the ocean and the sky. A walk of 
ten miles brought me to a seaside town without a cliff, 
which, like the town I had come from, was out of the 
season too. Half of the houses were shut up ; half of 
the other half were to let ; the town might have done as 
much business as it was doing then, if it had been at the 
bottom of the sea. Nobody seemed to flourish save the 
attorney ; his clerk’s pen was going in the bow-window 
of his wooden house ; his brass door-plate alone was free 
from salt, and had been polished up that morning. On 
die beach, among the rough luggers and capstans, groups 


142 


OUT OF THE SEASON. 


of storm-beaten boatmen, like a sort of marine monsters, 
watched under the lee of those objects, or stood leaning 
forward against the wind, looking out through battered 
spy-glasses. The parlor bell in the Admiral Benbow 
had grown so flat with being out of the season, that 
neither could I hear it ring when I pulled the handle for 
lunch, nor could the young woman in black stockings and 
strong shoes, who acted as waiter out of the season, until 
it had been tinkled three times. 

Admiral Benbow’s cheese was out of the season, but 
his home-made bread was good, and his beer was perfect. 
Deluded by some earlier spring day which had been 
warm and sunny, the Admiral had cleared the firing out 
of his parlor stove, and had put some flower-pots in — 
which was amiable and hopeful in the Admiral, but not 
judicious : the room being, at that present visiting, tran- 
scendently cold. I therefore took the liberty of peeping 
out across a little stone passage into the Admiral’s kitch- 
en, and, seeing a high settle with its back towards me 
drawn out in front of the Admiral’s kitchen fire, I strolled 
in, bread and cheese in hand, munching and looking about. 
One landsman and tv r o boatmen were seated on the settle, 
smoking pipes and drinking beer out of thick pint crock- 
ery mugs — mugs peculiar to such places, with parti- 
colored rings round them, and ornaments between the 
rings like frayed-out roots. The landsman was relating 
his experience, as yet only three nights’ old, of a fearful 
running-down case in the Channel, and therein presented 
to my imagination a sound of music that it will not soon 
forget. 

“ At that identical moment of time,” said he (he was 
a prosy man by nature, who rose with his subject), “ the 
night being light and calm, but with a gray mist upon 


OUT OF THE SEASON. 


143 


the water that didn’t seem to spread for more than two 
or three mile, I was walking up and down the wooden 
causeway next the pier, off where it happened, along 
with a friend of mine, which his name is Mr. Clocker. 
Mr. Clocker is a grocer over yonder.” (From the direc- 
tion in which he pointed the bowl of his pipe, I might 
have judged Mr. Clocker to be a Merman, established in 
the grocery trade in five-and-twenty fathoms of water.) 
“We were smoking our pipes, and walking up and down 
the causeway, talking of one thing and talking of an 
other. We were quite alone there, except that a few 
hovellers” (the Kentish name for ’long-shore boatmen 
like his companions) “ were hanging about their lugs, 
waiting while the tide made,- as hovellers will.” (One 
of the two boatmen, thoughtfully regarding me, shut up 
one eye ; this I understood to mean : first, that he took 
me into the conversation : secondly, that he confirmed 
the proposition : thirdly, that he announced himself as a 
hoveller.) “ All of a sudden Mr. Clocker and me stood 
rooted to the spot, by hearing a sound come through the 
stillness, right over the sea, like a great sorrowful flute 
or JEolian harp . We didn’t in the least know what it 
was, and judge of our surprise when we saw the hovel- 
lers, to a man, leap into the boats and tear about to hoist 
sail and get off, as if they had every one of ’em gone, in 
a moment, raving mad ! But they knew it was the cry 
of distress from the sinking emigrant ship.” 

When I got back to my watering-place out of the sea- 
son, and had done my twenty miles in good style, I found 
that the celebrated Black Mesmerist intended favoring 
the public that evening in the Hall of the Muses, which 
lie had engaged for the purpose. After a good dinner, 
seated by the fire in an easy-chair, I began to waver in a 


144 


OUT OF THE SEASON. 


design I had formed of waiting on the Black Mesmerist, 
and to incline towards the expediency of remaining where 
I was. Indeed a point of gallantry was involved in my 
doing so, inasmuch as I had not left France alone, 
but had come from the prisons of St. Pelagie with my 
distinguished and unfortunate friend Madame Roland 
(in two volumes which I bought for two francs each, at 
the book-stall in the Place de la Concorde, Paris, at the 
corner of the Rue Royale). Deciding to pass the even- 
ing tete-a-tete with Madame Roland, I derived, as I 
always do, great pleasure from that spiritual woman’s 
society, and the charms of her brave soul and engaging 
conversation. I must confess that if she had only some 
more faults, only a few mpre passionate failings of any 
kind, I might love her better ; but I am content to be- 
lieve that the deficiency is in me, and not in her. We 
spent some sadly interesting hours together on this occa- 
sion, and she told me again of her cruel discharge from 
the Abbaye, and of her being rearrested before her free 
feet had sprung lightly up half a dozen steps of her own 
staircase, and carried off to the prison which she only 
left for the guillotine. 

Madame Roland and I took leave of one another 
before midnight, and I went to bed full of vast intentions 
for next day, in connection with the unparalleled chapter. 
To hear the foreign mail-steamers coming in at dawn of 
day, and to know that I was not aboard or obliged to get 
up, was very comfortable ; so, I rose for the chapter in 
great force. 

I had advanced so far as to sit down at my window 
again on my second morning, and to write the first half- 
line of the chapter and strike it out, not liking it, when 
my conscience reproached me with not having surveyed 


OUT OF THE SEASON. 


145 


i 


the watering-place out of the season, after all, yesterday, 
but with having gone straight out of it at the rate of four 
miles and a half an hour. Obviously the best amends 
that I could make for this remissness was to go and look 
at it without another moment’s delay. So — altogether 
as a matter of duty — I gave up the magnificent chapter 
for another day, and sauntered out with my hands in my 
pockets. 

All the houses and lodgings ever let to visitors, were 
to let that morning. It seemed to have snowed bills with 
To Let upon them. This put me upon thinking what the 
owners of all these apartments did, out of the season ; 
how they employed their time, and occupied their minds. 
They could not be always going to the Methodist chapels, 
of which I passed one every other minute. They must 
have some other recreation. Whether they pretended to 
take one another’s lodgings, and opened one another’s 
tea-caddies in fun ? Whether they cut slices off their own 
beef and mutton, and made believe that it belonged to 
somebody else ? Whether they played little dramas of 
life, as children do, and said, “ I ought to come and look 
at your apartments, and you ought to ask two guineas a 
week too much, and then I ought to say I must have the 
rest of the day to think of it, and then you ought to say 
that another lady and gentleman with no children in 
family had made an offer very close to your own terms, 
and you had passed your word to give them a positive 
answer in half an hour, and indeed were just going to 
take the bill down when you heard the knock, and then I 
ought to take them, you know ? ” Twenty such specula- 
tions engaged my thoughts. Then, after passing, still 
clinging to the walls, defaced rags of the bills of last 
year’s Circus, I came to a back field near a timber-yard 

10 


VOL. II. 


146 


OUT OF THE SEASON. 


where the Circus itself had been, and where there was 
yet a sort of monkish tonsure on the grass, indicating the 
spot where the young lady had gone round upon her pet 
steed Firefly in her daring flight. Turning into the town 
again, I came among the shops, and they were emphatical 
ly out of the season. The chemist had no boxes of ginger 
beer powders, no beautifying sea-side soaps and washes, 
no attractive scents ; nothing but his great goggle-eyed 
red bottles, looking as if the winds of winter and the 
drift of the salt-sea had inflamed them. The grocers’ 
hot pickles, Harvey’s Sauce, Doctor Kitchener’s Zest, 
Anchovy Paste, Dundee Marmalade, and the whole stock 
of luxurious helps to appetite, were hybernating some- 
where under-ground. The china-shop had no trifles from 
anywhere. The Bazaar had given in altogether, and pre- 
sented a notice on the shutters that this establishment 
would reopen at Whitsuntide, and that the proprietor in 
the mean time might be heard of at Wild Lodge, East 
Cliff. At the Sea-bathing Establishment, a row of neat 
little wooden houses seven or eight feet high, I saiv the 
proprietor in bed in the shower-bath. As to the bathing- 
machines, they were (how they got there, is not for me 
to say) at the top of a hill at least a mile and a half off. 
The library, which I had never seen otherwise than wide 
open, was tight shut ; and two peevish bald old gentlemen 
seemed to be hermetically sealed up inside, eternally 
reading the paper. That wonderful mystery, the music 
shop, carried it off as usual (except that it had mor 
cabinet pianos in stock), as if season or no season were 
all one to it. It made the same prodigious display of 
bright brazen wind-instruments, horribly twisted, worth, 
as I should conceive, some thousands of pounds, and 
which it is utterly impossible that anybody in any season 


OUT OF THE SEASON 


147 




can ever play or want to play. It had five triangles in 
the window, six pairs of castanets, and three harps ; like- 
wise every polka with a colored frontispiece that ever 
was published ; from the original one where a smooth 
male and female Pole of high rank are coming at the 
observer with their arms a-kimbo, to the Ratcatcher’s 
Daughter. Astonishing establishment, amazing enigma ! 
Three other shops were pretty much out of the season, 
what they were used to be in it. First, the shop where 
they sell the sailors’ watches, which had still the old col- 
lection of enormous time-keepers, apparently designed to 
break a fall from the masthead : with places to wind them 
up, like fire-plugs. Secondly, the shop where they sell 
the sailors’ clothing, which displayed the old sou’-westers, 
and the old oily suits, and the old pea-jackets, and the 
old one sea-chest, with its handles like a pair of rope ear- 
rings. Thirdly, the unchangeable shop for the sale of 
literature that has been left behind. Here, Dr. Faustus 
was still going down to very red and yellow perdition, 
under the superintendence of three green personages of 
a scaly humor, with excrescential serpents growing out of 
their blade-bones. Here, the Golden Dreamer, and the 
Norwood Fortune Teller, were still on sale at sixpence 
each, with instructions for making the dumb cake, and 
reading destinies in tea-cups, and with a picture of a 
young woman with a high waist lying on a sofa in an 
attitude so uncomfortable as almost to account for her 
dreaming at one and the same time of a conflagration, a 
shipwreck, an earthquake, a skeleton, a church-porch, 
lightning, funerals performed, and a young man in a 
bright blue coat and canary pantaloons. Here, were 
Little Warblers and Fairburn’s Comic Songsters. Here, 
too, were ballads on the old ballad paper and in the old 


148 


OUT OF THE SEASON. 


confusion of types ; with an old man in a cocked hat, and 
an arm-chair, for the illustration to Will Watch the bold 
Smuggler ; and the Friar of Orders Grey, represented 
by a little girl in a hoop, with a ship in the distance. 
All these as of yore, when they were infinite delights tc 
me ! 

It took me so long fully to relish these many enjoy- 
ments, that I had not more than an hour before bedtime 
to devote to Madame Roland. We got on admirably to- 
gether on the subject of her convent education, and I rose 
next morning with the full conviction that the day for the 
great chapter was at last arrived. 

It had fallen calm, however, in the night, and as I sat 
at breakfast I blushed to remember that I had not yet 
been on the Downs. I a walker, and not yet on the 
Downs ! Really, on so quiet and bright a morning this 
must be set right. As an essential part of the Whole 
Duty of Man, therefore, I left the chapter to itself — for 
the present — and went on the Downs. They were won- 
derfully green and beautiful, and gave me a good deal to 
do. When I had done with the free air and the view, I 
had to go down into the valley and look after the hops 
(which I know nothing about), and to be equally solici- 
tous as to the cherry orchards. Then I took it on myself 
to cross-examine a tramping family in black (mother al- 
leged, I have no doubt by herself in person, to have died 
last week), and to accompany eighteenpence which pro- 
duced a great effect, with moral admonitions which pro- 
duced none at all. Finally, it was late in the afternoon 
before I got back to the unprecedented chapter, and then 
I determined that it was out of the season, as the place 
was, and put it away. 

1 w r ent at night to the benefit of Mrs. B. Wedgington 


OUT OF THE SEASON. 


149 


at the Theatre, who had placarded the town with the ad- 
monition, “ Don’t forget it ! ” I made the house, ac- 
cording to my calculation, four and ninepence to begin 
with, and it may have warmed up, in the course of the 
evening, to half a sovereign. There was nothing to 
offend any one, — the good Mr. Baines of Leeds ex- 
cepted. Mrs. B. Wedgington sang to a grand piano. Mr. 
B. Wedgington did the like, and also took off his coat, 
tucked up his trousers, and danced in clogs. Master B. 
Wedgington, aged ten months, was nursed by a shivering 
young person in the boxes, and- the eye of Mrs. B. Wed- 
gington wandered that way more than once. Peace be 
with all the Wedgington’s from A. to Z. May they find 
themselves in the Season somewhere ! 


f 


A POOR MAN’S TALE OF A PATENT. 

« » 

♦ 

I am not used to writing for print. What working* 
man that never labors less (some Mondays, and Christ- 
mas Time and Easter Time excepted) than twelve or 
fourteen hour a day, is ? But I have been asked to put 
down, plain, what I have got to say ; and so I take pen 
and ink, and do it to the best of my power, hoping de- 
fects will find excuse. 

I was born, nigh London, but have worked in a shop 
at Birmingham (what you would call Manufactories, we 
call Shops), almost ever since I was out of my time. I 
served my apprenticeship at Deptford, nigh where I was 
born, and I am a smith by trade. My name is John. I 
have been called “ Old John ” ever since I was nineteen 
year of age, on account of not having much hair. I am 
fifty-six year of age at the present time, and I don't find 
myself with more hair, nor yet with less, to signify, than 
at nineteen year of age aforesaid. 

I have been married five-and-thirty year, come next 
April. I was married on All Fools?- Day. Let them 
laugh that win. I won a good wife that day, and it was 
as sensible a day to me as ever I had. 

We have had a matter of ten children, six whereof are 
living. My eldest son is engineer in the Italian steam- 
packet “ Mezzo Giorno, plying between Marseilles and 






A POOR MAN’S TALE OF A PATENT. 


151 


Naples, and calling at Genoa, Leghorn, and Civita Vec- 
chia.” He was a good workman. He invented a many 
useful little things that brought him in — nothing. I 
have two sons doing well at Sydney, New South Wales 
— single, when last heard from. One of my sons 
(James) went wild and for a soldier, where he was shot 
in India, living six weeks in hospital with a musket-hall 
lodged in his shoulder-blade, which he wrote with his own 
hand. He was the best-looking. One of my two daugh- 
ters (Mary) is comfortable in her circumstances, but water 
on the chest. The other (Charlotte), her husband run 
away from her in the basest manner, and she and her 
three children live with us. The youngest, six year 
old, has a turn for mechanics. 

I am not a Chartist, and I never was. I don’t mean 
to say but what I see a good many public points to com- 
plain of, still I don’t think that’s the way to set them 
right. If I did think so, I should be a Chartist. But I 
don’t think so, and I am not a Chartist. I read the 
paper, and hear discussion, at what we call “ a parlor ” 
in Birmingham, and I know many good men and work- 
men who are Chartists. Note. Not Physical force. 

It won’t be took as boastful in me, if I make the 
remark (for I can’t put down what I have got to say, 
without putting that down before going any further), that 
I have always been of an ingenious turn. I once got 
twenty pound by a screw, and it’s in use now. I have 
been twenty year, off and on, completing an Invention 
and perfecting it. I perfected of it, last Christmas Eve 
at ten o’clock at night. Me and my wife stood and let 
some tears fall over the Model, when it was done and I 
brought her in to take a look at it. 

A friend of mine, by the name of William Butcher, is 


152 


A POOR MAN’S TALE OF A PATENT. 


a Chartist. Moderate. He is a good speaker. He is 
very animated. I have often heard him deliver that 
what is, at every turn, in the way of us working-men, is, 
that too many places have been made, in the course of 
time, to provide for people that never ought to have been 
provided for ; and that we have to obey forms and to pay 
fees to support those places when we shouldn’t ought. 
“ True,” (delivers William Butcher,) u all the public has 
to do this, but it falls heaviest on the working-man, be- 
cause he has least to spare ; and likewise because imped- 
iments shouldn’t be put in his way, when he wants redress 
of wrong, or furtherance of right.” Note. I have wrote 
down those words from William Butcher’s own mouth. 
W. B. delivering them fresh for the aforesaid purpose. 

Now, to my Model again. There it was, perfected of, 
on Christmas Eve, gone nigh a year, at ten o’clock at 
night. All the money I could spare I had laid out upon 
the Model ; and when times was bad, or my daughter 
Charlotte’s children sickly, or both, it had stood still, 
months at a spell. I had pulled it to pieces, and made 
it over again with improvements, I don’t know how often. 
There it stood at last, a perfected Model as aforesaid. 

William Butcher and me had a long talk, Christmas 
Day, respecting of the Model. . William is very sensible. 
But sometimes cranky. William said, “ What will you 
do with it, John ? ” I said, “ Patent it.” William said, 
“ How Patent it, John ? ” I said, “ By taking out a 
Patent.” William then delivered that the law of Patent 
was a cruel wrong. William said, “ John, if you make 
your invention public, before you get a Patent, any one 
may rob you of the fruits of your hard work. You are 
put in a cleft stick, John. Either you must drive a bar- 
gain very much against yourself, by getting a party to 


A POOR MAN’S TALE OF A PATENT. 


153 


some forward beforehand with the great expenses of the 
Patent ; or you must be put about, from post to pillar, 
among so many parties, trying to make a better bargain 
for yourself, and showing your invention, that your in- 
vention will be took from you over your head.” I said, 
“William Butcher, are you cranky? You are some- 
times cranky.” William said, “ No, John, I tell you the 
truth ; ” which he then delivered more at length. I said 
to W. B. I would Patent the invention myself. 

My wife’s brother, George Bury of West Bromwich 
(his wife unfortunately took to drinking, made away with 
everything, and seventeen times committed to Birming- 
ham Jail before happy release in every point of view), 
left my wife, his sister, when he died, a legacy of one 
hundred and twenty-eight pound ten, Bank of England 
Stocks. Me and my wife had never broke into that 
money yet. Note. We might come to be old, and past 
our work. We now agreed to Patent the invention. We 
said we would make a hole in it — I mean in the 
aforesaid money — and Patent the invention. William 
Butcher' wrote me a letter to Thomas Joy, in London. 
T. J. is a carpenter, six foot four in height, and plays 
quoits well. He lives in Chelsea, London, by the church. 
I got leave from the shop, to be took on again when I 
come back. I am a good workman. Not a Teetotaller ; 
but never drunk. When the Christmas holidays were 
over, I went up to London by the Parliamentary Train, 
and hired a lodging for a week with Thomas Joy. He 
is married. He has one son gone to sea. 

Thomas Joy delivered (from a book he had) that the 
first step to be took, in Patenting the invention, was to 
prepare a petition unto Queen Victoria. William Butcher 
had delivered similar, and drawn it up. Note. William 


154 


A POOR MAN’S TALE OF A PATENT. 


is a ready writer. A declaration before a Master in 
Chancery was to be added to it. That, we likewise 
drew up. After a deal of trouble I found out a Master, 
in Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, nigh Temple 
Bar, where I made the declaration, and paid eighteen- 
pence. I was told to take the declaration and petition 

to the Home Office, in Whitehall, where I left it to be 

% 

signed by the Home Secretary (after I had found the 
office out) and where I paid two pound, two, and six- 
pence. In six days he signed it, and I was told to take 
it to the Attorney- General’s chambers, and leave it there 
for a report. I did so, and paid four pound, four. Note. 
Nobody all through, ever thankful for their money, but 
all uncivil. 

My lodging at Thomas Joy’s was now hired for an- 
other week, whereof five days were gone. The Attor- 
ney-General made what they called a Beport-of-course 
(my invention being, as William Butcher had delivered 
before starting, unopposed), and I was sent back with it 
to the Home Office. They made a Copy of it, which 
was called a Warrant. For this warrant, I paid seven 
pound, thirteen, and six. It was sent to the Queen, to 
sign. The Queen sent it back, signed. The Home 
Secretary signed it again. The gentleman throwed it at 
me when I called, and said, “ Now take it to the Patent 
Office in Lincoln’s Inn.” I was then in my third week 
at Thomas Joy’s, living very sparing, on account of fees. 
I found myself losing heart. 

At the Patent Office in Lincoln’s Inn, they made “ a 
draft of the Queen’s bill,” of my invention, and a “ docket 
of the bill.” I paid five pound, ten, and six, for this. 
They “ engrossed two copies of the bill ; one for the 
Signet Office, and one for the Privy-Seal Office.” I 


A POOR MAN’S TALE OF A PATENT. 


155 


paid one pound, seven, and six, for this. Stamp-duty 
over and above, three pound. The Engrossing Clerk 
of the same office engrossed the Queen’s bill for signa- 
ture. I paid him one pound, one. Stamp-duty again, 
one pound, ten. I was next to take the Queen’s bill to 
the Attorney- General again, and get it signed again. I 
took it, and paid five pound more. I fetched it away, 
and took it to the Home Secretary again. He sent it to 
the Queen again. She signed it again. I paid seven 
pound, thirteen, and six, more, for this. I had been 
over a month at Thomas Joy’s. I was quite wore out, 
patience and pocket. 

Thomas Joy delivered all this, as it went on, to Wil- 
liam Butcher. William Butcher delivered it again to 
three Birmingham Parlors, from which it got to all the 
other Parlors, and was took, as I have been told since, 
right through all the shops in the North of England. 
Note. William Butcher delivered, at his Parlor, in 
a speech, that it was a Patent way of making Char- 
tists. 

But I hadn’t nigh done yet. The Queen’s bill was to 
be took to the Signet Office in Somerset House, Strand 
— where the stamp shop is. The Clerk of the Signet 
made “ a Signet bill for the Lord Keeper of the Privy 
Seal.” I paid him four pound, seven. The Clerk of 
the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal made “ a Privy-Seal 
bill for the Lord Chancellor.” I paid him four pound, 
two. The Privy-Seal bill was handed over to the Clerk 
of the Patents, who engrossed the aforesaid. I paid 
him five pound, seventeen, and eight ; at the same time, 
[ paid Stamp-duty for the Patent, in one lump, thirty 
pound. I next paid for “ boxes for the Patent,” nine 
and sixpence. Note. Thomas Joy would have made the 


156 


A POOR MAN’S TALE OF A PATENT. 


same at a profit for eighteenpence. I next paid “ fees to 
the Deputy, the Lord Chancellor’s Purse-Bearer,” two 
pound, two. I next paid “ fees to the Clerk of the 
Hanaper,” seven pound, thirteen. I next paid “ fees to 
the Deputy Clerk of the Hanaper,” ten shillings. I 
next paid, to the Lord Chancellor again, one pound, 
eleven, and six. Last of all, I paid “ fees to the Deputy 
Sealer, and Deputy Chaff-wax,” ten shillings and six- 
pence. I had lodged at Thomas Joy’s over six weeks, 
and the unopposed Patent for my invention, for England 
only, had cost me ninety-six pound, seven, and eight- 
pence. If I had taken it out for the United Kingdom, 
it would have cost me more than three hundred pound. 

Now, teaching had not come up but very limited when 
I was young. So much the worse for me you’ll say. I 
say the same. William Butcher is twenty year younger 
than me. He knows a hundred year more. If William 
Butcher had wanted to Patent an invention, he might 
have been sharper than myself when hustled backwards 
and forwards among all those offices, though I doubt if 
so patient. Note. William being sometimes cranky, and 
consider porters, messengers, and clerks. 

Thereby I say nothing of my being tired of my life, 
while I was Patenting my invention. But I put this : 
Is it reasonable to make a man feel as if, in inventing an 
ingenious improvement meant to do good, he had done 
something wrong ? How else can a man feel, when he 
is met by such difficulties at every turn ? All inventors 
taking out a Patent must feel so. And look at the ex- 
pense. How hard on me, and how hard on the country 
if there’s any merit in me (and my invention is took up 
now, I am thankful to say, and doing well), to put me to 
all that expense before I can move a finger ! Make the 


A POOR MAN’S TALE OF A PATENT. 


157 


addition yourseffi, and it’ll come to ninety-six pound, 
seven, and eightpence. No more, and no less. 

What can I say against William Butcher, about 
places ? Look at the Home Secretary, the Attorney- 
General, the Patent Office, the Engrossing Clerk, the 
Lord Chancellor, the Privy Seal, the Clerk of the Pat- 
ents, the Lord Chancellor’s Purse-bearer, the Clerk of 
the Hanaper, the Deputy Clerk of the Hanaper, the 
Deputy Sealer, and the Deputy Chaff-wax. No man in 
England could get a Patent for an India-rubber band, or 
an iron hoop, without feeing all of them. Some of them, 
over and over again. I went through thirty-five stages. 
I began with the Queen upon the Throne. I ended with 
the Deputy Chaff-wax. Note. I should like to see the 
Deputy Chaff-wax. Is it a man, or what is it ? 

What I had to tell, I have told. I have wrote it down. 
I hope it’s plain. Not so much in the handwriting 
(though nothing to boast of there), as in the sense of it. 
I will now conclude with Thomas Joy. Thomas said to 
me, when we parted, “ John, if the laws of this country 
were as honest as they ought to be, you would have come 
to London — registered an exact description and draw- 
ing of your invention — paid half a crown or so for 
doing of it — and therein and thereby have got your 
Patent.” 

My opinion is the same as Thomas Joy. Further. In 
William Butcher’s delivering “ that the whole gang of 
Hanapers and Chaff- waxes must be done away with, and 
that England has been chaffed and waxed sufficient,” I 
agree. 


THE NOBLE SAVAGE. 


—4 

To come to the point at once, I beg to say that I have 
not the least belief in the Noble Savage. I consider him 
a prodigious nuisance, and an enormous superstition. 
His calling rum fire-water, and me a pale face, wholly 
fail to reconcile me to him. I don’t care what he calls 
me. I call him a savage, and I call a savage a some- 
thing highly desirable to be civilized off the face of the 
earth. I think a mere gent (which I take to be the 
lowest form of civilization) better than a howling, whist- 
ling, clucking, stamping, jumping, tearing savage. It is 
all one to me, whether he sticks a fish-bone through his 
visage, or bits of trees through the lobes of his ears, or 
birds’ feathers in his head ; whether he flattens his hair 
between two boards, or spreads his nose over the breadth 
of his face, or drags his lower lip down by great weights, 
or blackens his teeth, or knocks them out, or paints one 
cheek red and the other blue, or tattooes himself, or oils 
himself, or rubs his body with fat, or crimps it with 
knives. Yielding to whichsoever of these agreeable 
eccentricities, he is a savage — cruel, false, thievish, 
murderous ; addicted more or less to grease, entrails 
and beastly customs ; a wild animal with the question- 
able gift of boasting ; a conceited, tiresome, bloodthirsty, 
monotonous humbug. 


THE NOBLE SAVAGE. 


159 


Yet it is extraordinary to observe how some people 
will talk about him, as they talk about the good old 
times ; how they will regret his disappearance, in the 
course of this world’s development, from such and such 
lands where his absence is a blessed relief and an indis- 
pensable preparation for the sowing of the very first 
seeds of any influence that can exalt humanity ; how, 
even with the evidence of himself before them, they will 
either be determined to believe, or will suffer themselves 
to be persuaded into believing, that he is something 
which their five senses tell them he is not. 

There was Mr. Catlin, some few years ago, with his 
Ojibbeway Indians. Mr. Catlin was an energetic ear- 
nest man, who had lived among more tribes of Indians 
than I need reckon up here, and who had written a pic- 
turesque and glowing book about them. With his party 
of Indians squatting and spitting on the table before 
him, or dancing their miserable jigs after their own 
dreary manner, he called, in all good faith, upon his 
civilized audience to take notice of their symmetry and 
grace, their perfect limbs, and the exquisite expression 
of their pantomime ; and his civilized audience, in all 
good faith, complied and admired. Whereas, as mere 
animals, they were wretched creatures, very low in the 
scale and very poorly formed; and as men and women 
possessing any power of truthful dramatic expression by 
means of action, they were no better than the chorus at 
an Italian Opera in England — and would have been 
.vorse if such a thing were possible. 

Mine are no new views of the noble savage. The great- 
est writers on natural history found him out long ago. 
Buffon knew what he was, and showed why he is the 
sulky tyrant tnat he is to his women, and how it hap- 


\ 

4 

160 

pens (Heaven be praised !) that his race is spare in num- 
bers. For evidence of the quality of his moral nature, 
pass himself for a moment and refer to his “ faith! ll dog.” 
Has he ever improved a dog, or attached a dog, since his 
nobility first ran wild in woods, and was brought down 
(at a very long shot) by Pope ? Or does the anima 
that is the friend of man, always degenerate in his low 
society ? 

It is not the miserable nature of the noble savage thal 
is the new thing ; it is the whimpering over him with 
maudlin admiration, and the affecting to regret him, and 
the drawing of any comparison of advantage between 
the blemishes of civilization and the tenor of his swinish 
life. There may have been a change now and then in 
those diseased absurdities, but there is none in him. 

Think of the Bushmen. Think of the two men and 
the two women who have been exhibited about England 
for some years. Are the majority of persons — who 
remember the horrid little leader of that party in his 
festering bundle of hides, with his filth and his antipathy 
to water, and his straddled legs, and his odious eyes 
shaded by his brutal hand, and his cry of “ Qu-u-u-u- 
aaa ! ” (Bosjesman for something desperately insulting I 
have no doubt) — conscious of an affectionate yearning 
towards that noble savage, or is it idiosyncratic in me to 
abhor, detest, abominate, and abjure him ? I have no 
reserve on this subject, and will frankly state that, set 
ting aside that stage of the entertainment when he coun- 
terfeited the death of some creature he had shot, by lay- 
ing his head on his hand and shaking his left leg — at 
which time I think it would have been justifiable homi- 
cide to slay him — I have never seen that group sleep- 
ing smoking, and expectorating round their brazier, but 






THE NOBLE SAVAGE. 


THE NOBLE SAVAGE. 


161 


I have sincerely desired that something might Happen to 
the charcoal smouldering therein, which would cause 
the immediate suffocation of the whole of the noble 
strangers. 

There is at present a party of Zulu Kaffirs exhibiting 
at the St. George’s Gallery, Hyde Park Corner, London. 
These noble savages are represented in a most agreeable 
manner ; they are seen in an elegant theatre, fitted with 
appropriate scenery of great beauty, and they are de- 
scribed in a very sensible and unpretending lecture, de- 
livered with a modesty which is quite a pattern to all 
similar exponents. Though extremely ugly, they are 
much better shaped than such of their predecessors as 
I have referred to ; and they are rather picturesque to 
the eye, though far from odoriferous to the nose. What 
a visitor left to his own interpretings and imaginings 
might suppose these noblemen to be about, when they 
give vent to that pantomimic expression which is quite 
settled to be the natural gift of the noble savage, I cannot 
possibly conceive ; for it is so much too luminous for my 
personal civilization that it conveys no idea to my mind 
beyond a general stamping, ramping, and raving, remark- 
able (as everything in savage life is) for its dire uni- 
formity. But let us — with the interpreter’s assistance, 
of which I for one stand so much in need — see what the 
noble savage does in Zulu Kaffirland. 

The noble savage sets a king to reign over him, to 
whom he submits his life and limbs without a murmur or 
question, and whose whole life is passed chin-deep in a 
lake of blood; but who, after killing incessantly, is in 
his turn killed by his relations and friends, the moment 
a gray hair appears on his head. All the noble savage’s 
wars with his fellow-savages (and he takes no pleasure 

VOL. II. 11 


162 


THE NOBLE SAVAGE. 


in anything else) are wars of extermination — which is 
the best thing I know of him, and the most comfortable 
to my mind when I look at him. He has no moral feel- 
ings of any kind, sort, or description ; and his “ mission ” 
may be summed up as simply diabolical. 

The ceremonies with which he faintly diversifies his 
life are, of course, of a kindred nature. If he wants a 
wife he appears before the kennel of the gentleman whom 
he has selected for his father-in-law, attended by a party 
of male friends of a very strong flavor, who screech and 
whistle and stamp an offer of so many cows for the young 
lady’s hand. The chosen father-in-law — also supported 
by a high-flavored party of male friends — screeches, 
whistles, and yells (being seated on the ground, he can’t 
stamp) that there never was such a daughter in the mar- 
ket as his daughter, and that he must have six more 
cows. The son-in-law and his select circle of backers, 
screech, whistle, stamp, and yell in reply, that they will 
give three more cows. The father-in-law (an old de- 
luder, overpaid at the beginning) accepts four, and rises 
to bind the bargain. The whole party, the young lady 
included, then falling into epileptic convulsions, and 
screeching, whistling, stamping, and yelling together — 
and nobody taking any notice of the young lady (whose 
charms are not to be thought of without a shudder) — 
the noble savage is considered married, and his friends 
make demoniacal leaps at him by way of congratulation. 

When the noble savage finds himself a little unwell, 
and mentions the circumstance to his friends, it is imme- 
diately perceived that he is under the influence of witch- 
craft. A learned personage, called an Imyanger or 
Witch Doctor, is immediately sent for to Nooker the 
Umtargartie, or smell out the witch. The male inhab- 


THE NOBLE SAVAGE. 


163 


itants of the kraal being seated on the ground, the learned 
doctor, got up like a grizzly bear, appears, and adminis- 
ters a dance of a most terrific nature, during the exhibi- 
tion of which remedy he incessantly gnashes his teeth, 
and howls : “ I am the original physician to Nooker 
the Umtargartie. Yow yow yow ! No connection with 
any other establishment. Till till till ! All other Um- 
targarties are feigned Umtargarties, Boroo Boroo ! but I 
perceive here a genuine and real Umtargartie, Hoosh 
Hoosh Hoosh ! in wdiose blood I, the original Imy anger 
and Nookerer, Blizzerum Boo ! will wash these bear’s 
claws of mine. 0 yow yow yow ! ” All this time the 
learned physician is looking out among the attentive faces 
for some unfortunate man who owes him a cow, or who 
has given him any small offence, or against whom, with- 
out offence, he has conceived a spite. Him he never 
fails to Nooker as the Umtargartie, and he is instantly 
killed. In the absence of such an individual, the usual 
practice is to Nooker the quietest and most gentlemanly 
person in company. But the nookering is invariably fol- 
lowed on the spot by the butchering. 

Some of the noble savages in whom Mr. Catlin was so 
strongly interested, and the diminution of whose num- 
bers, by rum and small-pox, greatly affected him, had a 
custom not unlike this, though much more appalling and 
disgusting in its odious details. 

The women being at work in the fields, hoeing the In- 
dian corn, and the noble savage being asleep in the shade, 
the chief has sometimes the condescension to come forth, 
and lighten the labor by looking at it. On these occa- 
sions, he seats himself in his own savage chair, and is 
attended by his shield-bearer : who holds over his head a 
shield of cowhide — in shape like an immense mussel 


164 


THE NOBLE SAVAGE. 


shell — fearfully and wonderfully, after the manner of a 
theatrical supernumerary. But lest the great man should 
forget his greatness in the contemplation of the humble 
works of agriculture, there suddenly rushes in a poet, re- 
tained for the purpose, called a Praiser. This literary 
gentleman wears a leopard’s head over his own, and a 
dress of tiger’s tails ; he has the appearance of having 
come express on his hind legs from the Zoological Gar- 
dens ; and he incontinently strikes up the chief’s praises, 
plunging and tearing all the while. There is a frantic 
wickedness in this brute’s manner of worrying the air, 
and gnashing out, “ Oh what a delightful chief he is ! O 
what a delicious quantity of blood he sheds ! 0 how 

majestically he laps it up ! 0 how charmingly cruel he 

is ! O how he tears the flesh of his enemies and crunches 
the bones ! O how like the tiger and the leopard and 
the w r olf and the bear he is ! O, row row row row, 
how fond I am of him ! ” — which might tempt the 
Society of Friends to charge at a hand-gallop into the 
Swartz-Kop location and exterminate the whole kraal. 

When war is afoot among the noble savages — which 
is always — the chief holds a council to ascertain whether 
it is the opinion of his brothers and friends in general 
that the enemy shall be exterminated. On this occasion, 
after the performance of an Umsebeuza, or war song, — 
which is exactly like all the other songs, — the chief 
makes a speech to his brothers and friends, arranged in 
single file. No particular order is observed during the 
delivery of this address, but every gentleman who finds 
himself excited by the subject, instead of crying “ Hear, 
hear ! ” as is the custom with us, darts from *he rank and 
tramples out the life, or crushes the skull, or mashes the 
face, or scoops out the eyes, or breaks the limbs, or per- 




THE NOBLE' SAVAGE. 


165 


forms a whirlwind of atrocities on the body, of an im- 
aginary enemy. Several gentlemen becoming thus ex- 
cited at once, and pounding away without the least 
regard to the orator, that illustrious person is rather in 
the position of an orator in an Irish House of Com- 
mons. But, several of these scenes of savage life bear 
a strong generic resemblance to an Irish election, and I 
think would be extremely well received and understood 
at Cork. 

In all these ceremonies the noble savage holds forth to 
the utmost possible extent about himself ; from which (to 
turn him to some civilized account) we may learn, I 
think, that as egotism is one of the most offensive and 
contemptible littlenesses a civilized man can exhibit, so 
it is really incompatible with the interchange of ideas ; 
inasmuch as if we all talked about ourselves we should 
soon have no listeners, and must be all yelling and 
screeching at once on our own separate accounts : mak- 
ing society hideous. It is my opinion that if we retained 
in us anything of the noble savage, we could not get rid 
of it too soon. But the fact is clearly otherwise. Upon 
the wife and dowry question, substituting coin for cows, 
we have assuredly nothing of the Zulu Kaffir left. The 
endurance of despotism is one great distinguishing mark 
of a savage always. The improving world has quite got 
the better of that too. In like manner, Paris is a civil- 
ized city, and the Theatre Fra^ais a highly civilized 
theatre ; and we shall never hear, and never have heard 
in these later days (of course) of the Praiser there . No, 
no, civilized poets have better work to do. As to Nook- 
ering Umtargarties, there are no pretended Umtargarties 
in Europe, and no European powers to Nooker them ; 
that would be mere spydom, subornation, small malice, 


166 


THE NOBLE SAVAGE. 


superstition, and false pretence. And as to private Um- 
targarties, are we not iii the year eighteen hundred and 
fifty-three, with spirits rapping at our doors ? 

To conclude as I began. My position is, that if we 
have anything to learn from the Noble Savage, it is what 
to avoid. His virtues are a fable ; his happiness is a 
delusion ; his nobility, nonsense. We have no greater 
justification for being cruel to the miserable object, than 
for being cruel to a William Shakspeake or an Isaac 
Newton ; but he passes away before an immeasurably 
better and higher power than ever ran wild in any earthly 
woods, and the world will be all the better when his 
place knows him no more. 


A FLIGHT. 


— ♦ ■ 

When Don Diego cle — I forget his name — the in- 
ventor of the last new Flying Machines, price so many 
francs for ladies, so many more for gentlemen — when 
Don Diego, by permission of Deputy Chaff Wax and 
his noble band, shall have taken out a Patent for the 
Queen’s dominions, and shall have opened a commodi- 
ous Warehouse in an airy situation ; and when all per- 
sons of any gentility will keep at least a pair of wings, 
and be seen skimming about in every direction ; I shall 
take a flight to Paris (as I soar round the world) in 
a cheap and independent manner. At present, my re- 
liance is on the South Eastern Pailway Company, in 
whose Express Train here I sit, at eight of the clock* on 
a very hot morning, under the very hot roof of the Ter- 
minus at London Bridge, in danger of being “ forced ” 
like a cucumber or a melon, or a pineapple — And talk- 
ing of pineapples, I suppose there never were so many 
pineapples in a Train as there appear to be in this 
Train. 

Whew ! The hot-house air is faint with pineapples. 
Every French citizen or citizeness is carrying pineap- 
ples home. The compact little Enchantress in the cor- 
ner of my carriage (French actress, to whom I yielded 
up my heart under the auspices of that brave child, 


168 


A FLIGHT. 


“ Meat-chell,” at the St. James’s Theatre the night 
before last) has a pineapple in her lap. Compact En- 
chantress’s friend, confidante, mother, mystery, Heaven 
knows what, has two pineapples in her lap, and a bun- 
dle of them under the seat. Tobacco-smoky French- 
men in Algerine wrapper, with peaked hood behind, 
who might be Abd-el-Kader dyed rifle-green, and who 
seems to be dressed entirely in dirt and braid, carries 
pineapples in a • covered basket. Tall, grave, melan- 
choly Frenchman, with black Vandyke beard, and hair 
close-cropped, with expansive chest to waistcoat, and 
compressive waist to coat : saturnine as to his panta- 
loons, calm as to his feminine boots, precious as to his 
jewelry, smooth and white as to his linen : dark-eyed, 
high-foreheaded, hawk-nosed — got up, one thinks, like 
Lucifer or Mephistopheles, or Zamiel, transformed into 
a highly genteel Parisian — has the green end of a pine- 
apple sticking out of his neat valise. 

Whew ! If I were to be kept here long, under this 
forcing-frame, I wonder . what would become of me — 
whether I should be forced into a giant, or should sprout 
orMow into some other phenomenon ! Compact En- 
chantress is not ruffled by the heat — she is always com- 
posed, always compact. O look at her little ribbons, 
frills, and edges, at her shawl, at her gloves, at her hair, 
at her bracelets, at her bonnet, at everything about her ! 
How is it accomplished ? What does she do to be so 
neat? How is it that every trifle she wears belongs 
to her, and cannot choose but be a part of her? And 
even Mystery, look at her ! A model. Mystery is not 
young, not pretty, though still of an average candle- 
light passability ; but she does such miracles in her own 
behalf, that, one of these days, when she dies, they’ll be 


A FLIGHT. 


169 


amazed to find an old woman in her bed, distantly like 
her. She was an actress once, I shouldn’t wonder, and 
had a Mystery attendant on herself. Perhaps, Com- 
pact Enchantress will live to be a Mystery, and to wait 
with a shawl at the side-scenes, and to sit opposite to 
Mademoiselle in railway carriages, and smile and talk 
subserviently, as Mystery does now. That’s hard to 
believe ! 

Two Englishmen, and now our carriage is full. First 
Englishman, in the moneyed interest — flushed, highly re- 
spectable — Stock Exchange, perhaps — City, certainly. 
Faculties of second Englishman entirely absorbed in 
hurry. Plunges into the carriage, blind. Calls out of 
window concerning his luggage, deaf. Suffocates him- 
self under pillows of great-coats, for no reason, and in a 
demented manner. Will receive no assurance from any 
porter whatsoever. Is stout and hot, and wipes his 
head, and makes himself hotter by breathing so hard. 
Is totally incredulous respecting assurance of Collected 
Guard that “ there’s no hurry.” No hurry ! And a 
flight to Paris in eleven hours ! 

It is all one to me in this drowsy corner, hurry 
hurry. Until Don Diego shall send home my wings, 
my flight is with the South Eastern Company. I can 
fly with the South Eastern, more lazily, at all events, 
than in the upper air. I have but to sit here thinking 
as idly as I please, and be whisked away. I am not 
accountable to anybody for the idleness of my thoughts 
in such an idle summer flight ; my flight is provided for 
by the South Eastern and is no business of mine. 

The bell ! With all my heart. It does not require 
me to do so much as even to flap my wings. Something 
snorts for me, something shrieks for me, something pro- 



170 


A FLIGHT. 


claims to everything else that it had better keep out ol 
my way, — and away I go. 

Ah ! The fresh air is pleasant after the forcing- 
frame, though it does blow over these interminable 
streets, and scatter the smoke of this vast wilderness 
of chimneys. Here we are — no, I mean there we 
were, for it has darted far into the rear — in Bermond- 
sey where the tanners live. Flash ! The distant ship- 
ping in the Thames is gone. Whirr ! The little streets 
of new brick and red tile, with here and there a flagstaff 
growing like a tall weed out of the scarlet beans, and, 
everywhere, plenty of open sewer and ditch for the pro- 
motion of the public health, have been fired off in a vol- 
ley. Whizz ! Dustheaps, market-gardens, and waste 
grounds. Battle ! New Cross Station. Shock ! There 
we were at Croydon. Bur-r-r-r ! The tunnel. 

I wonder why it is that when I shut my eyes in a 
tunnel I begin to feel as if I were going at an Express 
pace the other way. I am clearly going back to Lon- 
don now. Compact Enchantress must have forgotten 
something, and reversed the engine. No ! After long 
daftness, pale fitful streaks of light appear. I am still 
flying on for Folkestone. The streaks grow stronger 
— become continuous — become the ghost of day — 
become the living day — became I mean — the tunnel 
is miles and miles away, and here I fly through sun- 
light, all among the harvest and the Kentish hops. 

There is a dreamy pleasure in this flying. I wonder 
where it was, and when it was, that we exploded, blew 
into space somehow, a Parliamentary Train, with a 
crowd of heads and faces looking at us out of cages, 
and some hats waving. Moneyed Interest says it was at 
Reigate Station. Expounds to Mystery how Reigate 


A FLIGHT. 


171 


Station is so many miles from London, which Mystery 
again develops to Compact Enchantress. There might 
be neither a Beigate nor a London for me, as I fly away 
among the Kentish hops and harvest. What do 1 care ! 

Bang ! We have let another Station off, and fly 
away regardless. Everything is flying. The hop-gar 
dens turn gracefully towards me, presenting regular 
avenues of hops in rapid flight, then whirl away. So 
do the pools and rushes, haystacks, sheep, clover in full 
bloom delicious to the sight and smell, corn-sheaves, 
cherry-orchards, apple-orchards, reapers, gleaners, hedges, 
gates, fields that taper off into little angular corners, cot- 
tages, gardens, now and then a church. Bang, bang ! 
A double-barrelled Station ! Now a wood, now a bridge, 

now a landscape, now a cutting, now a Bang! 

a single-barrelled Station — there was a cricket-match 
somewhere with two wdiite tents, and then four flying 
cows, then turnips — now the wires of the electric tel- 
egraph are all alive, and spin, and blurr their edges, 
and go up and down, and make the intervals between 
each other most irregular : contracting and expanding 
in the strangest manner. Now we slacken. With a 
screwing, and a grinding, and a smell of water thrown 
on ashes, now we stop ! 

Demented Traveller, who has been for tw T o or three 
minutes watchful, clutches his great-coats, plunges at 
the door, rattles it, cries “ Hi ! ” eager to embark on 
board of impossible packets, far inland. Collected Guard 
appears. “ Are you for Tunbridge, sir ? ” “ Tunbridge ? 
No. Paris.” “ Plenty of time, sir. No hurry. Five 
minutes here, sir, for refreshment.” I am so blest (an- 
ticipating Zamiel, by half a second) as to procure a 
glass of water for Compact Enchantress. 


172 


A FLIGHT. 


Who would suppose we had been flying at such a 
rate, and shall take wing again directly ? Refreshment- 
room full, platform full, porter with watering-pot delib- 
erately cooling a hot wheel, another porter with equal 
deliberation helping the rest of the wheels bountifully to 
ice cream. Moneyed Interest and I reentering the car- 
riage first, and being there alone, he intimates to me that 
the French are “ no go ” as a Nation. I ask why ? He 
says*, that Reign of Terror of theirs was quite enough. 
I ventured to inquire whether he remembers anything 
that preceded said Reign of Terror ? He says not par- 
ticularly. “ Because,” I remark, “ the harvest that is 
reaped, has sometimes been sown.” Moneyed Interest 
repeats, as quite enough for him, that the French are 
revolutionary, “ — and always at it.” 

Bell. Compact Enchantress, helped in by Zamiel, 
(whom the stars confound !) gives us her charming little 
side-box look, and smites me to the core. Mystery eat- 
ing sponge-cake. Pineapple atmosphere faintly tinged 
with suspicions of sherry. Demented Traveller flits past 
the carriage, looking for it. Is blind with agitation, and 
can’t see it. Seems singled out by Destiny to be the 
anly unhappy creature in the flight, who has any cause 
to hurry himself. Is nearly left behind. Is seized by 
Collected Guard after the train is in motion, and bundled 
in. Still, has lingering suspicions that there must be a 
boat in the neighborhood, and will look wildly out of 
window for it. 

Flight resumed. Corn-sheaves, hop-gardens, reapers, 
gleaners, apple-orchards, cherry-orchards, Stations single 
and double-barrelled, Ashford. Compact Enchantress 
(constantly talking to Mystery, in an exquisite manner) 
gives a little scream ; a sound that seems to come from 


A FLIGHT. 


173 


high up in her precious little head ; from behind her 
bright little eyebrows. u Great Heaven, my pineapple ! 
My Angel ! It is lost ! ” Mystery is desolated. A 
search made. It is not lost. Zamiel finds it. I curse 
him (flying) in the Persian manner. May his face be 
turned upside down, and jackasses sit upon his uncle’s 
grave ! 

Now fresher air, now glimpses of unenclosed Down- 
land with flapping crows flying over it whom we soon 
outfly, now the Sea, now Folkestone at a quarter after 
ten. “ Tickets ready, gentlemen ! ” Demented dashes 
at the door. “ For Paris, sir ? No hurry.” 

Not the least. We are dropped slowly down to the 
Port, and sidle to and fro (the whole Train) before the 
insensible Royal George Hotel, for some ten minutes. 
The Royal George takes no more heed of us than its 
namesake under water at Spithead, or under earth at 
Windsor, does. The Royal George’s dog lies winking 
and blinking at us, without taking the trouble to sit up ; 
and the Royal George’s “ wedding-party ” at the open 
window (who seem, I must say, rather tired of bliss) 
don’t bestow a solitary glance upon us, flying thus to 
Paris in eleven hours. The first gentleman in Folke- 
stone is evidently used up, on this subject. 

Meanwhile, Demented chafes. Conceives that every 
man’s hand is against him, and exerting itself to prevent 
his getting to Paris. Refuses consolation. Rattles 
door. Sees smoke on the horizon, and “ knows,” it’s the 
boat gone without him. Moneyed Interest resentfully 
explains that he is going to Paris too. Demented signi- 
fies that if Moneyed Interest chooses to be left behind, he 
don’t. , . 

u Refreshments in the Waiting-Room, ladies and gen- 


174 


A FLIGHT. 


tlemen. No hurry, ladies and gentlemen, for Paris. No 
hurry whatever ! ” 

Twenty minutes’ pause, by Folkestone clock, for look- 
ing at Enchantress while she eats a sandwich, and at 
Mystery while she eats of everything there that is eat- 
able, from po.rk-pie, sausage, jam, and gooseberries, to 
lumps of sugar. All this time, there is a very waterfall 
of luggage, with a spray of dust, tumbling slantwise from 
the pier into the steamboat. All this time, Demented 
(who has no business with it) watches it with starting 
eyes, fiercely requiring to be shown his luggage. When it 
at last concludes the cataract, he rushes hotly to refresh 
— is shouted after, pursued, jostled, brought back, pitch- 
ed into the departing steamer upside down, and caught 
by mariners disgracefully. 

A lovely harvest day, a cloudless sky, a tranquil sea. 
The piston-rods of the engines so regularly coming up 
from below, to look (as well they may) at the bright 
weather, and so regularly almost knocking their iron 
heads against the cross beam of the skylight, and never 
doing it ! Another Parisian actress is on board, attended 
by another Mystery. Compact Enchantress greets her 
sister artist — Oh, the Compact One’s pretty teeth ! — 
and Mystery greets Mystery. My Mystery soon ceases 
to be conversational — is taken poorly, in a word, having 
lunched too miscellaneously — and goes below. The re- 
maining Mystery then smiles upon the sister artists (who, 
I am afraid, wouldn’t greatly mind stabbing each other), 
and is upon the whole ravished. 

And now I find that all the French people on board 
begin to grow, and all the English people to shrink. The 
French are nearing home, and shaking off a disadvantage, 
whereas we ar? shaking it on. Zamiel is the same man, 


A FLIGHT. 


175 


and Abd-el-Kader is the same man, tut each seems to 
come into possession of an indescribable confidence that 
departs from us, from Moneyed Interest, for instance, and 
from me. Just what they gain, we lose. Certain British 
“ Gents ” about the steersman, intellectually nurtured at 
home on parody of everything and truth of nothing, be- 
come subdued, and in a manner forlorn ; and when the 
steersman tells them (not unexultingly) how he has 
“ been upon this station now eight year, and never see 
the old town of Bullum yet,” one of them, with an imbe- 
cile reliance on a reed, asks him what he considers to be 
the best hotel in Paris ? 

Now, I tread upon French ground, and am greeted by 
the three charming words, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, 
painted up (in letters a little too thin for their height) on 
the Custom-House wall — also by the sight of large 
cocked hats, without which demonstrative head-gear noth- 
ing of a public nature can be done upon this soil. All the 
rabid hotel population of Boulogne howl and shriek outside 
a distant barrier, frantic to get at us. Demented, by some 
unlucky means peculiar to himself, is delivered over to 
their fury, and is presently seen struggling in a whirlpool 
of Touters — is somehow understood to be going to Paris 
— is, with infinite noise, rescued by two cocked hats, and 
brought into Custom-House bondage with the rest of us. 

Here, I resign the active duties of life to an eager be- 
ing, of preternatural sharpness, with a shelving forehead 
and a shabby snuff-colored coat, who (from the wharf) 
brought me down with his eye before the boat came into 
port. He darts upon my luggage, on the floor where all 
the luggage is strewn like a wreck at the bottom of the 
great deep ; gets it proclaimed and weighed as the prop- 
erty of “ Monsieur a traveller unknown ; ” pays certain 


176 


A FLIGHT. 


francs for it, to a certain functionary behind a Pigeon 
Hole, like a pay-box at a Theatre (the arrangements in 
general are on a wholesale scale, half military and half 
theatrical) ; and I suppose I shall find it when I come 
to Paris — he says I shall. I know nothing about it, ex- 
cept that I pay him his small fee, and pocket the ticket 
he gives me, and sit upon a counter, involved in the gen- 
eral distraction. 

Pail way station. “ Lunch or dinner, ladies and gen- 
tlemen. Plenty of time for Paris. Plenty of time ! ” 
Large hall, long counter, long strips of dining-table, bot- 
tles of wine, plates of meat, roast chickens, little loaves 
of bread, basins of soup, little caraffes of brandy, cakes, 
and fruit. Comfortably restored from these resources, I 
begin to fly again. 

I saw Zamiel (before I took wing) presented to Com- 
pact Enchantress and Sister Artist, by an officer in uni- 
form, with a waist like a wasp’s, and pantaloons like two 
balloons. They all got into the next carriage together, 
accompanied by the two Mysteries. They laughed. I 
am alone in the carriage (for I don’t consider Demented 
anybody) and alone in the world. 

Fields, windmills, low grounds, pollard-trees, wind- 
mills, fields, fortifications, Abbeville, soldiering and drum- 
ming. I wonder where England is, and when I was there 
last — about two years ago, I should say. Flying in and 
out among these trenches and batteries, skimming the 
clattering drawbridges, looking down into the stagnant 
ditches, I become a prisoner of state, escaping. I am 
confined with a comrade in a fortress. Our room is in an 
upper story. We have tried to get up the chimney, but 
there’s an iron grating across it, imbedded in the mason- 
ry. After months of labor, we have worked the grating 


A FLIGHT. 


177 


loose with the poker, and can lift it up. We have also 
made a hook, and twisted our rugs and blankets into 
ropes. Our plan is, to go up the chimney, hook our 
ropes to the top, descend hand over hand upon the roof 
of the guard-house far below, shake the hook loose, watch 
the opportunity of the sentinel’s pacing away, hook again, 
drop into the ditch, swim across it, creep into the shelter 
of the wood. The time is come — a wild and stormy 
night. We are up the chimney, we are on the guard- 
house roof, we are swimming m the murky ditch, when 
lo ! “ Qui v’la ? ” a bugle, the alarm, a crash ! What is 
it? Death? No, Amiens. 

More fortifications, more soldiering and drumming, 
more basins of soup, more little loaves of bread, more 
bottles of wine, more caraffes of brandy, more time for 
refreshment. Everything good, and everything ready. 
Bright, unsubstantial-looking, scenic sort of station. 
People waiting. Houses, uniforms, beards, moustaches, 
some sabots, plenty of neat women, and a few old-visaged 
children. Unless it be a delusion born of my giddy 
flight, the grown-up people and the children seem to 
change places in France. In general, the boys and girls 
are little old men and women, and the men and women 
lively boys and girls. 

Bugle, shriek, flight resumed. Moneyed Interest has 
come into my carriage. Says the manner of refreshing 
is “not bad,” but considers it French. Admits great 
dexterity and politeness in the attendants. Thinks a 
decimal currency may have something to do with their 
despatch in settling accounts, and don’t know but what 
•t’s sensible and convenient. Adds, however, as a general 
orotest, that they’re a revolutionary people — and always 
at it. 


VOL. II. 


12 


178 


A FLIGHT. 


Ramparts, canals, cathedral, river, soldiering and drum' 
ming, open country, river, earthenware manufactures, 
Creil. Again ten minutes. Not even Demented in a 
hurry. Station, a drawing room with a verandah : like 
a planter’s house. Moneyed Interest considers it in a 
band-box, and not made to last. Little round tables in 
it, at one of which the Sister Artists and attendant Mys- 
teries are established with Wasp and Zamiel, as if they 
were going to stay a week. 

Anon, with no more trouble than before, I am flying 
again, and lazily wondering as I fly. What has the 
South Eastern done with all the horrible little villages 
we used to pass through, in the Diligence ? What have 
they done with all the summer dust, with all the winter 
mud, with all the dreary avenues of little trees, with all 
the ramshackle postyards, with all the beggars (who used 
to turn out at night with bits of lighted candle, to look 
in at the coach windows), with all the long-tailed horses 
who were always biting one another, with all the big pos- 
tilions in jack-boots — with all the mouldy cafes that we 
used to stop at, where a long mildewed tablecloth, set 
forth with jovial bottles of vinegar and oil, and with a 
Siamese arrangement of pepper and salt, was never 
wanting ? Where are the grass-grown little towns, the 
wonderful little market-places all unconscious of markets, 
the shops that nobody kept, the streets that nobody trod, 
the churches that nobody went to, the bells that nobody 
rang, the tumble-down old buildings plastered with many- 
colored bills that nobody read ? Where are the two-and- 
twenty weary hours of long long day and night journey, 
sure to be either insupportably hot or insupportably cold ? 
Where are the pains in my bones, where are the fidgets 
in my legs, where is the Frenchman with the nightcap 


A FLIGHT. 


179 


who never would have the little cowpe -window down, and 
who always fell upon me when he went to sleep, and 
always slept all night snoring onions ? 

A voice breaks in with “ Paris ! Here we are ! ” 

I have overflown myself, perhaps, but I can’t believe 
it. I feel as if I were enchanted or bewitched. It is 
barely eight o’clock yet — it is nothing like half-past — • 
when I have had my luggage examined at that briskest 
of Custom Houses attached to the station, and am rattling 
over the pavement in a Hackney cabriolet. 

Surely, not the pavement of Paris ? Yes, I think it is, 
too. I don’t know any other place where there are all 
these high houses, all these haggard-looking wine shops, 
all these billiard tables, all these stocking-makers with 
flat red or yellow legs of wood for signboard, all these 
fuel shops with stacks of billets painted outside, and real 
billets sawing in the gutter, all these dirty corners of 
streets, all these cabinet pictures over dark doorways 
representing discreet matrons nursing babies. And yet 
this morning — I’ll think of it in a warm-bath. 

Very like a small room that I remember in the Chi- 
nese Baths upon the Boulevard, certainly ; and, though I 
see it through the steam, I think that I might swear to 
that peculiar hot-linen basket, like a large wicker hour- 
glass. When can it have been that I left home ? When 
was it that I paid “ through to Paris ” at London Bridge, 
nd discharged myself of all responsibility, except the 
preservation of a voucher ruled into three divisions, of 
which the first was snipped off at Folkestone, the second 
aboard the boat, and the third taken at my journey’s 
end ? It seems to have been ages ago. Calculation is 
Useless. I will go out for a walk. 

The crowds in the streets, the lights in the shops and 


180 


A FLIGHT. 


balconies, the elegance, variety, and beauty of their deco- 
rations, the number of the theatres, the brilliant cafes 
with their windows thrown up high and their vivacious 
groups at little tables on the pavement, the light and 
glitter of the houses turned as it were inside out, soon 
convince me that it is no dream ; that I am in Paris, how- 
soever I got here. I stroll down to the sparkling Palais 
Royal, up the Rue de Rivoli, to the Place Vendome. 
As I glance into a print-shop window, Moneyed Interest, 
my late travelling companion, comes upon me, laughing 
with the highest relish of disdain. “ Here’s a people ! ” 
he says, pointing to Napoleon in the window and Napo- 
leon on the column. “ Only one idea all over Paris ! 
A monomania ! ” Humph ! I think I have seen Napo- 
leon’s match ? There was a statue, when I came away, 
at Hyde Park Corner, and another in the City, and a 
print or two in the shops. 

I walk up to the Barriere de TEtoile, sufficiently dazed 
by my flight to have a pleasant doubt of the reality of 
everything about me ; of the lively crowd, the overhang- 
ing trees, the performing dogs, the hobby-horses, the beau- 
tiful perspectives of shining lamps : the hundred and one 
inclosures, where the singing is, in gleaming orchestras of 
azure and gold, and with a star-eyed Ilouri comes round 
with a box for voluntary offerings. So, I pass to my 
hotel, enchanted ; sup, enchanted ; go to bed, enchanted ; 
pushing back this morning (if it really were this morn- 
ing) into the remoteness of time, blessing the South 
Eastern Company for realizing the Arabian Nights in 
these prose days, murmuring, as I wing my idle flight 
into the land of dreams, “ No hurry, ladies and gentle- 
men, going to Paris in eleven hours. It is so well done, 
that there really is no hurry ! ” 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


♦ 

We are not by any means devout believers in the Old 
Bow Street Police. To say the truth, we think there 
was a vast amount of humbug about those worthies. 
Apart from many of them being men of very indifferent 
character, and far too much in the habit of consorting 
with thieves and the like, they never lost a public occa- 
sion of jobbing and trading in mystery and making the 
most of themselves. Continually puffed besides by in- 
competent magistrates anxious to conceal their own defi- 
ciencies, and hand-in-glove with the penny-a-liners of that 
time, they became a sort of superstition. Although as a 
Preventive Police they were utterly ineffective, and as 
a Detective Police were very loose and uncertain in their 
operations, they remain with some people a superstition 
to the present day. 

On the other hand, the Detective F orce organized since 
the establishment of the existing Police, is so well chosen 
and trained, proceeds so systematically and quietly, doe, 
its business in such a workman-like manner, and is 
always so calmly and steadily engaged in the service of 
the public, that the public really do not know enough of it, 
to know a tithe of its usefulness. Impressed with this 
conviction, and interested in the men themselves, we 
represented to the authorities at Scotland Yard, that we 


182 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


should be glad, if there were no official objection, to have 
some talk with the Detectives. A most obliging and 
ready permission being given, a certain evening was ap- 
pointed with a certain Inspector for a social conference 
between ourselves and the Detectives, at The Household 
Words Office in Wellington Street, Strand, Londcn. In 
consequence of which appointment the party “ came off,” 
which we are about to describe. And we beg to repeat 
that, avoiding such topics as it might for obvious reasons 
be injurious to the public, or disagreeable to respectable 
individuals, to touch upon in print, our description is as 
exact as we can make it. 

The reader will have the goodness to imagine the 
Sanctum Sanctorum of Household Words. Anything 
that best suits the readers fancy, will best represent that 
magnificent chamber. We merely stipulate for a round 
table in the middle, with some glasses and cigars ar- 
ranged upon it ; and the editorial sofa elegantly hemmed 
in between that stately piece of furniture and the wall. 

It is a sultry evening at dusk. The stones of Wel- 
lington Street are hot and gritty, and the watermen and 
hackney-coachmen at the Theatre opposite, are much 
flushed and aggravated. Carriages are constantly set- 
ting down the people who have come to Fairy-Land; 
and there is a mighty shouting and bellowing every now 
and then, deafening us for the moment, through the open 
windows. 

Just at dusk, Inspectors Wield and Stalker are an- 
nounced ; but we do not undertake to warrant the orthog- 
raphy of any of the names here mentioned. Inspector 
Wield presents Inspector Stalker. Inspector Wield is a 
middle-aged man of a portly presence, with a large, 
moist, knowing eye, a husky voice, and a habit of empha- 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


183 


sizing his conversation by the aid of a corpulent fore- 
finger, which is constantly in juxtaposition with his eyes 
or nose. Inspector Stalker is a shrewd, hard-headed 
Scotchman — in appearance not at all unlike a very 
acute, thoroughly trained schoolmaster, from the Norma 1 
Establishment at Glasgow. Inspector Wield one migh 
have known, perhaps, for what he is — Inspector Stalker 
never. 

The ceremonies of reception over, Inspectors Wield 
and Stalker observe that they have brought some ser- 
geants with them. The sergeants are presented — five 
in number, Sergeant Dornton, Sergeant Witchem, Ser- 
geant Mith, Sergeant Fendall, and Sergeant Straw. We 
have the whole Detective Force from Scotland Yard, 
with one exception. They sit down in a semi-circle (the 
two Inspectors at the two ends) at a little distance from 
the round table, facing the editorial sofa. Every man 
of them, in a glance, immediately takes an inven- 
tory of the furniture and an accurate sketch of the edi- 
torial presence. The Editor feels that any gentleman in 
company could take him up, if need should be, without 
the smallest hesitation, twenty years hence. 

The whole party are in plain clothes. Sergeant Dorn- 
ton, about fifty years of age, with a ruddy face and a 
high sun-burnt forehead, has the air of one who has been 
a Sergeant in the army — he might have sat to Wilkie 
for the Soldier in the Reading of the Will. He is 
famous for steadily pursuing the inductive process, and, 
from small beginnings, working on from clue to clue until 
ne bags his man. Sergeant Witchem, shorter and 
thicker-set, and marked with the small-pox, has some- 
thing of a reserved and thoughtful air, as if he were 
engaged in deep arithmetical calculations. He is re- 


184 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


nowned lor his acquaintance with the swell mob. Ser- 
geant Mith, a smooth-faced man with a fresh bright com- 
plexion, and a strange air of simplicity, is a dab at house 
breakers. Sergeant Fendall, a light-haired, well-spoken, 
polite person, is a prodigious hand at pursuing private 
inquiries of a delicate nature. Straw, a little wiry Ser- 
geant of meek demeanor and strong sense, would knock 
at a door and ask a series of questions in any mild char- 
acter you choose to prescribe to him, from a cliarity-boy 
upwards, and seem as innocent as an infant. They are, 
one and all, respectable-looking men ; of perfectly good 
deportment and unusual intelligence ; with nothing loung- 
ing or slinking in their manners ; with an air of keen 
observation and quick perception when addressed ; and 
generally presenting in their faces, traces more or less 
marked of habitually leading lives of strong mental ex- 
citement. They have all good eyes ; and they all can, 
and they all do, look full at whomsoever they speak to. 

We light the cigars, and hand round the glasses (which 
are very temperately used indeed), and the conversation 
begins by a modest amateur reference on the Editorial 
part to the swell mob. Inspector Wield immediately re- 
moves his cigar from his lips, waves his right hand, and 
says, “ Regarding the swell mob, sir, I can’t do better 
than call upon Sergeant Witchem. Because the reason 
why ? I’ll tell you. Sergeant Witchem is better ac- 
quainted with the swell mob than any officer in Lon- 
don.” 

Our heart leaping up when we beheld this rainbow in 
the sky, we turn to Sergeant Witchem, who very con- 
cisely, and in well-chosen language, goes into the subject 
forthwith. Meantime, the whole of his brother officers 
are closely intei'ested in attending to what he says, and 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


185 


observing its effect. Presently they begin to strike in, 
one or two together, when an opportunity offers, and the 
conversation becomes general. But these brother officers 
only come in to the assistance of each other — not to the 
contradiction — and a more amicable brotherhood there 
could not be. From the swell mob, we diverge to the 
kindred topics of cracksmen, fences, public-house dan- 
cers, area-sneaks, designing young people who go out 
“ gonophing,” and other “ schools.” It is observable 
throughout these revelations, that Inspector Stalker, 
the Scotchman, is always exact and statistical, and that 
when any question of figures arises, everybody as by one 
consent pauses, and looks to him. 

When we have exhausted the various schools of Art 
— during which discussion the whole body have re- 
mained profoundly attentive, except when some unusual 
noise at the Theatre over the way has induced some gen- 
tleman to glance inquiringly towards the window in that 
direction, behind his next neighbor’s back — we burrow 
for information on such points as the following. Whether 
there really are any highway robberies in London, or 
whether some circumstances not convenient to be men- 
tioned by the aggrieved party, usually precede the rob- 
beries complained of, under that head, which quite change 
their character ? Certainly the latter, almost always. 
Whether in the case of robberies in houses, where ser- 
ants are necessarily exposed to doubt, innocence under 
uspicion ever becomes so like guilt in appearance, that 
a good officer need be cautious how he judges it ? Un- 
doubtedly. Nothing is so common or deceptive as such 
appearances at first. Whether in a place of public 
amusement, a thief knows an officer, and an officer knows 
a thief — supposing them, beforehand, strangers to each 


186 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


other — because each recognizes in the other, under all 
disguise, an inattention to what is going on, and a pur- 
pose that is not the purpose of being entertained? Yes. 
That’s the way exactly. Whether it is reasonable or 
ridiculous to trust to the alleged experiences of thieves 
as narrated by themselves, in prisons, or penitentiaries 
or anywhere ? In general, nothing more absurd. Lying 
is their habit and their trade ; and they would rather lie 
— even if they hadn’t an interest in it, and didn’t want 
to make themselves agreeable — than tell the truth. 

From these topics, we glide into a review of the most 
celebrated and horrible of the great crimes that have 
been committed within the last fifteen or twenty years. 
The men engaged in the discovery of almost all of them, 
and in the pursuit or apprehension of the murderers, are 
here, down to the very last instance. One of our guests 
gave chase to and boarded the emigrant ship, in which 
the murderess last hanged in London was supposed to 
have embarked. We learn from him that his errand was 
not announced to the passengers, who may have no idea 
of it to this hour. That he went below, with the cap- 
tain, lamp in hand — it being dark, and the whole steer- 
age abed and sea-sick — and engaged the Mrs. Manning, 
who was on board, in a conversation about her luggage, 
until she was, with no small pains, induced to raise her 
head, and turn her face towards the light. Satisfied that 
she was not the object of his search, he quietly reem- 
barked in the Government steamer alongside, and steamed 
home again with the intelligence. 

When we have exhausted these subjects, too, which 
occupy a considerable time in the discussion, two or three 
leave their chairs, whisper Sergeant Witchem, and re- 
sume their seats. Sergeant Witchem leaning forward a 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


187 


little, and placing a hand on each of his legs, then mod- 
estly speaks as follows:' 

“ My brother-officers wish me to relate a little account 
of my taking Tally-ho Thompson. A man oughtn't to 
tell what he has done himself; but still, as nobody was 
with me, and, consequently, as nobody but myself can 
tell it, I’ll do it in the best way I can, if it should meet 
your approval.’’ 

We assure Sergeant Witchem that he will oblige us 
very much, and we all compose ourselves to listen with 
great interest and attention. 

“ Tally-ho Thompson,” says Sergeant Witchem, aftei 
merely wetting his lips with his brandy and water, 
“ Tally-ho Thompson was a famous horse-stealer, couper, 
and magsman. Thompson, in conjunction with a pal that 
occasionally worked with him, gammoned a countryman 
out of a good round sum of money, under pretence of 
getting him a situation — the regular old dodge — and 
was afterwards in the ‘ Hue and Cry ’ for a horse — a 
horse that he stole, down in Hertfordshire. I had to 
look after Thompson, and I applied myself, of course, in 
the first instance, to discovering where he was. Now, 
Thompson’s wife lived, along with a little daughter, at 
Chelsea. Knowing that Thompson was somewhere in the 
country, I watched the house — especially at post-time in 
the morning — thinking Thompson was pretty likely to 
write to her. Sure enough, one morning the postman 
omes up and delivers a letter at Mrs. Thompson’s door. 
Little girl opens the door and takes it in. We’re not 
always sure of postmen, though the people at the post- 
offices are always very obliging. A postman may help 
us, or he may not, — just as it happens. However, I go 
across the road, and I say to the postman, after he has 


188 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


left the letter, ‘ Good morning! how are you?’ ‘ How 
are you?’ says he. ‘You’ve just delivered a letter for 
Mrs. Thompson.’ ‘ Yes, I have.’ ‘ You didn’t happen 
to remark what the post-mark was, perhaps ? ’ ‘No,’ 

says he, ‘ I didn’t.’ ‘ Come,’ says I, ‘ I’ll be plain with 
you. I’m in a small way of business, and I have given 
Thompson credit, and I can’t afford to lose what he owes 
me. I know he’s got money, and I know he’s in the 
country, and if you could tell me what the post-mark 
was, I should be very much obliged to you, and you’d do 
a service to a tradesman in a small way of business that 
can’t afford a loss.’ ‘ Well,’ he said, ‘ I do assure you 
that I did not observe what the post-mark was ; all I 
know is, that there was money in the letter — I should 
say a sovereign.’ This was enough for me, because of 
course I knew that Thompson having sent his wife 
money, it was probable she’d write to Thompson, by re- 
turn of post, to acknowledge the receipt. So I said 
‘ Thankee ’ to the postman, and I kept on the watch. In 
the afternoon I saw the little girl come out. Of course 
I followed her. She went into a stationer’s shop, and I 
needn’t say to you that I looked in at the window. She 
bought some writing-paper and envelopes, and a pen. I 
think to myself, ‘ That’ll do ! ’ — watch her home again 
— and don’t go away, you may be sure, knowing that 
Mrs. Thompson was writing her letter to Tally-ho, and 
that the letter would be posted presently. In about an 
hour or so, out came the little girl again, with the letter 
in her hand. I went up, and said something to the child, 
whatever it might have been ; but I couldn’t see the 
direction of the letter, because she held it with the seal 
upwards. However, I observed that on the back of the 
letter there was what we call a kiss — a drop of wax by 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


189 


ihe side of the seal — and again, you understand, that 
was enough for me. I saw her post the letter, waited 
till she was gone, then went into the shop, and asked to 
see the Master. When he came out, I told him, 4 Now, 
I’m an Officer in the Detective Force ; there's a letter 
with a kiss been posted here just now, for a man that 
I'm in search of ; and what I have to ask of you, is, that 
you will let me look at the direction of that letter.’ He 
was very civil — took a lot of letters from the box in 
the window — shook ’em out on the counter with the 
faces downwards — and there among ’em was the identi- 
cal letter with the kiss. It was directed, Mr. Thomas 

Pigeon, Post Office, B , to be left ’till called for. 

Down I went to B (a hundred and twenty miles or 

so) that night. Early next morning I went to the Post 
Office ; saw the gentleman in charge of that department ; 
told him who I was ; and that my object was to see, and 
track, the party that should come for the letter for Mr. 
Thomas Pigeon. He was very polite, and said, 4 You 
shall have every assistance we can give you ; you can 
wait inside the office ; and we’ll take care to let you 
know when anybody comes for the letter.’ Well, I 
waited there three days, and began to think that nobody 
ever would come. At last the clerk whispered to me, 
4 Here ! Detective ! Somebody’s come for the letter ! ' 
4 Keep him a minute,’ said I, and I ran round to the out- 
ide of the office. There I saw a young chap with the 
ppearance of an Ostler, holding a horse by the bridle — 
stretching the bridle across the pavement, while he waited 
at the Post Office Window for the letter. I began to pat 
he horse, and that ; and I said to the boy, 4 Why, this is 
Mr. Jones’s Mare!’ ^No. It a’n’t.’ 4 No ? ’ said I. 

She’s verv like Mr. Jones’s Mare ! ’ 4 She a’n’t Mr. 

r 


190 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


Jones’s Mare, anyhow,’ says lie. 4 It’s Mr. So and So’s, 
of the Warwick Arms.’ And up he jumped, and olf he 
went — letter and all. I got a cab, followed on the box, 
and was so quick after him that I came into the stable- 
yard of the Warwick Arms, by one gate, just as he came 
in by another. I went into the bar, where there was a 
young woman serving, and called for a glass of brandy 
and water. He came in directly, and handed her the 
letter. She casually looked at it, without saying any- 
thing, and stuck it up behind the glass over the chimney- 
piece. What was to be done next ? 

44 I turned it over in my mind while I drank my brandy 
and water (looking pretty sharp at the letter the while), 
but I couldn’t see my way out of it at all. I tried to get 
lodgings in the house, but there had been a horse-fair, 
or something of that sort, and it was full. I was obliged 
to put up somewhere else, but I came backwards and 
forwards to the bar for a couple of days, and there was 
the letter always behind the glass. At last I thought 
I’d write a letter to Mr. Pigeon myself, and see what 
that would do. So I wrote one, and posted it, but I 
purposely addressed it Mr. John Pigeon, instead of Mr. 
Thomas Pigeon, to see what that would do. In the 
morning (a very wet morning it was) I watched the 
postman down the street, and cut into the bar, just be- 
fore he reached the Warwick Arms. In he came pres- 
ently with my letter. 4 Is there a Mr. John Pigeon 
staying here ? ’ 4 No ! — stop a bit though,’ says the 

barmaid ; and she took down the letter behind the glass. 

No,’ says she, 4 it’s Thomas, and he is not staying here. 
Would you do me a favor and post this for me, as it is 
so wet ? ’ The postman said Yes ; she folded it in an- 
other envelope, directed it, and gave it him. He put it 
in his hat, and away he went. 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


191 


44 I had no difficulty in finding out the direction of that 
letter. It was addressed Mr. Thomas Pigeon, Post 

Office, R , Northamptonshire, to be left till called 

for. Off I started directly for R ; I said the same 

at the Post Office there, as I had said at B ; and 

again I waited three days before anybody came. At 
last another chap on horseback came. 4 Any letters for 
Mr. Thomas Pigeon ? ’ 4 Where do you come from ? * 

New Inn, near R .’ He got the letter, and away 

he went at a canter. 

44 I made my inquiries about the New Inn, near R , 

and hearing it was a solitary sort of house, a little in 
the horse line, about a couple of miles from the station, 
I thought I’d go and have a look at it. I found it what 
it had been described, and sauntered in, to look about 
me. The landlady was in the bar, and I was try- 
ing to get into conversation with her ; asked her how 
business was, and spoke about the wet weather, and so 
on ; when I saw, through an open door, three men sit- 
ting by the fire in a sort of parlor or kitchen ; and one 
of those men, according to the description I had of him, 
was Tally-ho Thompson ! 

44 1 went and sat down among ’em, and tried to make 
things agreeable ; but they were very shy — wouldn’t 
talk at all — looked at me, and at one another in a way 
quite the reverse of sociable. I reckoned ’em up, and 
finding that they were all three bigger men than me, and 
considering that their looks were ugly — that it was a 
lonely place — railroad station two miles off — and night 
coming on — thought I couldn’t do better than have a 
drop of brandy and water to keep my courage up. So 
I called for my brandy and water ; and as I was sitting 
kinking it by the fire, Thompson got up and went out. 


192 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


“ Now the difficulty of it was, that I wasn’t sure it was 
Thompson, because I had never set eyes on him before ; 
and what I had wanted was to be quite certain of him. 
However, there was nothing for it now, but to follow, 
and put a bold face upon it. I found him talking, out- 
side in the yard, with the landlady. It turned out after- 
wards that he was wanted by a Northampton officer foi 
something else, and that, knowing that officer to be pock- 
marked (as I am myself), he mistook me for him As 
I have observed, I found him talking to the landlady out- 
side. I put my hand upon his shoulder — this way — 
and said, ‘Tally-ho Thompson, it’s no use. I know you. 
I’m an officer from London, and I take you into custody 
for felony ! ’ ‘ That be d — d ! ’ says Tally-ho Thomp- 

son. 

“We went back into the house, and the two friends 
began to cut up rough, and their looks didn’t please me 
at all, I assure you. ‘ Let the man go. What are you 
going to do with him ? ’ ‘ I’ll tell you what I’m going to 

do with him. I’m going to take him to London to-night, 
as sure as I’m alive. I’m not alone here, whatever you 
may think. You mind your own business, and keep 
yourselves to yourselves. It'll be better for you, for I 
know you both very well.’ 7’d never seen or heard of 
’em in all my life, but my bouncing cowed ’em a bit, and 
they kept off, while Thompson was making ready to go. 
I thought to myself, however, that they might be coming 
after me on the dark road to rescue Thompson ; so I said 
to the landlady, ‘ What men have you got in the nouse, 
Missis?’ ‘We haven’t got no men here,’ she says, 
sulkily. ‘ You have got an ostler, I suppose ? ’ ‘ Yes, 

we’ve got an ostler.’ ‘ Let me see him.’ Presently he 
came, and a shaggy-headed young fellow he was. ‘ Now 


I 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 193 

attend to me, young man/ says I ; 4 I’m a Detective 
Offioer from London. This man’s name is Thompson. 
I have taken him into custody for felony. I’m going to 
take him to the railroad station. I call upon you in the 
Queen’s name to assist me ; and mind you, my friend, 
you’ll get yourself into more trouble than you know of, 
if you don’t ! ’ You never saw a person open his eyes 
so wide. 4 Now, Thompson, come along ! ’ says I. But 
when I took out the handcuffs, Thompson cries, 4 No ! 
None of that ! I won’t stand them ! I'll go along with 
you quiet, but I won’t bear none of that ! ’ 4 Tally-ho 

Thompson,’ I said, 4 I’m willing to behave as a man to 
you, if you are willing to behave as a man to me. Give 
me your word that you’ll come peaceably along, and I 
don’t want to handcuff you.’ 4 1 will,’ says Thompson, 
4 but I’ll have a glass of brandy first.’ 4 1 don’t care if 
I’ve another,’ said I. 4 We’ll have two more, Missis,’ 
said the friends, 4 and con-found you, Constable, you’ll 
give your man a drop, won’t you ? ’ I was agreeable to 
that, so we had it all round, and then my man and I took 
Tally-ho Thompson safe to the railroad, and I carried 
him to London that night. He was afterwards acquitted, 
on account of a defect in the evidence ; and I understand 
he always praises me up to the skies, and says I’m one 
of the best of men.” 

This story coming to a termination amidst general ap- 
plause, Inspector Wield, after a little grave smoking, 
fixes his eye on his host, and thus delivers himself: 

44 It wasn’t a bad plant that of mine, on Fikey, the 
man accused of forging the Sou’ Western Railway de- 
bentures — it was only t’other day — because the reason 
tvhy ? I'll tell you. 

44 1 had information that Fikey and his brother kept a 
VOL. II. 13 


194 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


factory over yonder there,” — indicating any region on 
the Surrey side of the river — 44 where he bought 
second-hand carriages ; so after I’d tried in vain to get 
hold of him by other means, I wrote him a letter in an 
assumed name, saying that I’d got a horse and shay to 
dispose of, and would drive down next day that he might 
view the lot, and make an offer — very reasonable ir. 
was, I said — a reg’lar bargain. Straw and me then 
went off to a friend of mine that’s in the livery and job 
business, and hired a turn-out for the day, a precious 
smart turn-out it was — quite a slap-up thing ! Down 
we drove, accordingly, with a friend (who’s not in the 
Force himself) ; and leaving my friend in the shay near 
a public-house, to take care of the horse, we went to the 
factory, which was some little way off. In the factory, there 
was a number of strong fellows at work, and after reck- 
oning ’em up, it was clear to me that it wouldn’t do to 
try it on there. They were too many for us. We must 
get our man out of doors. 4 Mr. Fikey at home ? ’ 4 No, 
he a’n't.’ 4 Expected home soon ? ’ 4 Why, no, not 

soon.’ 4 Ah ! is his brother here ? ’ 4 /’m his brother.’ 

4 Oh ! well, this is an ill-conwenience, this is. I wrote 
him a letter yesterday, saying I’d got a little turn-out to 
dispose of, and I’ve took the trouble to bring the turn- 
out down, a’ purpose, and now he a’n't in the way.’ 4 No, 
he a’n’t in the way. You couldn’t make it convenient 
to call again, could you ? ’ 4 Why, no, I couldn’t. I 

want to sell ; that’s the fact ; and I can't put it off. 
Could you find him anywheres ? ’ At first he said No, 
he couldn’t, and then he wasn’t sure about it, and then 
he’d go and try. So, at last he went up-stairs, where 
there was a sort of loft, and presently down comes my 
man himself, in his shirt-sleeves. 


THE DETECTIVE PuLICE. 


195 


44 4 Well/ he says, 4 this seems to be rayther a pressing 
matter of yours.’ 4 Yes/ I says, 4 it is rayther a pressing 
matter, and you’ll find it a bargain — dirt-cheap.’ 4 I 
a’n’t in par tickler want of a bargain just now/ he says, 
4 but where is it ? ’ 4 Why/ I says, 4 the turn-out’s just 

outside. Come and look at it.’ He hasn’t any suspi- 
cions, and away we go. And the first thing that happens 
is, that the horse runs away with my friend (who knows 
no more of driving than a child) when he takes a little 
trot along the road to show his paces. You never saw 
such a game in your life ! 

44 When the bolt is over, and the turn-out has come to 
a stand-still again, Fikey walks round and round it as 
grave as a judge — me too. 4 There, sir ! ’ I says. 4 There’s 
a neat tiling ! ’ 6 It a’n’t a bad style of thing/ he says. 

4 I believe you/ says I. 4 And there’s a horse ! ’ — for I 
saw him looking at it. 4 Rising eight ! ’ I says, rubbing 
his forelegs. (Bless you, there a’n’t a man in the world 
knows less of horses than I do, but I’d heard my friend 
at the Livery Stables say he was eight year old, so I 
says, as knowing as possible, 4 Rising Eight.’) 4 Rising 
eight, is he ? ’ says he. 4 Rising eight/ says I. 4 Well/ 
he says, 4 what do you want for it ? ’ 4 Why, the first 
and last figure for the whole concern is five-and-twenty 
pound ! ’ 4 That’s very cheap ! ’ he says, looking at me. 

4 A’n’t it ? ’ I says. 4 1 told you it was a bargain ! Now, 
without any higgling and haggling about it, what I want 
is to sell, and that’s my price. Further, I’ll make it 
easy to you, and take half the money down, and you can 
do a bit of stiff* for the balance.’ 4 Well/ he says again, 
that’s very cheap.’ 4 1 believe you/ says I ; 4 get in and 
try it, and you’ll buy it. Come ! take a trial ! ’ 

* Give a bill. 


l96 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


“ Ecod, lie gets in, and we get in, and we drive along 
the road, to show him to one of the railway clerks that 
was hid in the public-house window to identify him. But 
the clerk was bothered, and didn’t know whether it was 
him, or wasn’t — because the reason why ? I’ll tell you, 
— on account of his having shaved his whiskers. 4 It’s 
a clever little horse,’ he says, 4 and trots well ; and the 
shay runs light.’ 4 Not a doubt about it,’ I says. 4 And 
now, Mr. Fikey, I may as well make it all right, without 
wasting any more of your time. The fact is, I’m Inspec- 
tor Wield, and you’re my prisoner.’ 4 You don’t mean 
that ? ’ he says. 4 1 do, indeed.’ 4 Then burn my body,’ 
says Fikey, 4 if this a’n’t too bad ! ’ 

44 Perhaps you never saw a man so knocked over with 
surprise. 4 1 hope you’ll let me have my coat ? ’ he says. 
4 By all means.’ 4 Well, then, let's drive to the factory.’ 
4 Why, not exactly that, I think,’ said I ; 4 I’ve been there, 
once before, to-day. Suppose we send for it.’ He saw 
it was no go, so he sent for it, and put it on, and we drove 
him up to London, comfortable.” 

This reminiscence is in the height of its success, when 
a general proposal is made to the fresh-complexioned, 
smooth-faced officer, with the strange air of simplicity, to 
tell the 44 Butcher’s story.” 

The fresh-complexioned, smooth-faced officer, with the 
strange air of simplicity, began, with a rustic smile, and 
in a soft, wheedling tone of voice, to relate the Butcher's 
Story, thus : 

44 It’s just about six years ago, now, since information 
was given at Scotland Yard of there being extensive rob- 
beries of lawns and silks going on, at some wholesale 
houses in the City. Directions were given for the busi- 
ness being looked into ; and Straw, and Fendall, and me, 
we were all in it.” 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


197 


“ When you received your instructions,” said we, 
“ you went away, and held a sort of Cabinet Council 
together ! ” 

The smooth-faced officer coaxingly replied, “ Ye-es. Just 
so. We turned it over among ourselves a good deal. It 
appeared, when we went into it, that the goods were sold by 
the receivers extraordinarily cheap — much cheaper than 
they could have been if they had been honestly come by. 
The receivers were in the trade, and kept capital shops 
— establishments of the first respectability — one of ’em 
at the West End, one down in Westminster. After a lot 
of watching and inquiry, and this and that among our- 
selves, we found that the job was managed, and the pur- 
chases of the stolen goods made, at a little public-house 
near Smithfield, down by Saint Bartholomew’s ; where 
the Warehouse Porters, who were the thieves, took ’em 
for that purpose, don’t you see ? and made appointments 
to meet the people that went between themselves and the 
receivers. This public-house was principally used by 
journeymen butchers from the country, out of place, and 
in want of situations ; so, what did we do, but — ha, ha, 
ha ! -f- we agreed that I should be dressed up like a 
outclier myself, and go and live there ! ” 

Never, surely, was a faculty of observation better 
brought to bear upon a purpose, than that which picked 
out this officer for the part. Nothing in all creation 
could have suited him better. Even while he spoke, he 
became a greasy, sleepy, shy, good-natured, chuckle- 
headed, unsuspicious, and confiding young butcher. His 
very hair seemed to have suet in it, as he made it smooth 
upon his head, and his fresh complexion to be lubricated 
by large quantities of animal food. 

— “So I — ha, ha, ha ! ” (always with the confiding 


198 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


snigger of the foolish young butcher) “ so I dressed my 
self in the regular way, made up a little bundle of clothes, 
and went to the public-house, and asked if I could have 
a lodging there ? They says, 4 yes, you can have a lodg- 
ing here,’ and I got a bedroom, and settled myself down 
in the tap. There was a number of people about th 
place, and coming backwards and forwards to the house 
and first one says, and then another says, 4 Are you from 
the country, young man ? ’ 4 Yes,’ I says, 4 I am. I’m 

come out of Northamptonshire, and I’m quite lonely here, 
for I don't know London at all, and it’s such a mighty 
big town ? ’ 4 It is a big town,’ they says. 4 Oh, it’s a 

very big town ! ’ I says. 4 Ideally and truly I never was 
in such a town. It quite confuses of me ! ’ — and all 
that, you know. 

44 When some of the Journeymen Butchers that used 
the house, found that I wanted a place, they says, 4 Oh, 
we’ll get you a place ! ’ And they actually took me to a 
sight of places, in Newgate Market, Newport Market, 
Clare, Carnaby — I don’t know where all. But the 
wages was — ha, ha, ha ! — was not sufficient, and I 
never could suit myself, don’t you see ? Some of the 
queer frequenters of the house were a little suspicious 
of me at first, and I was obliged to be very cautious in- 
deed, how I communicated with Straw or Fendall. Some- 
times, when I went out, pretending to stop and look into 
the shop-windows, and just casting my eye round, I used 
to see some of ’em following me ; but, being perhaps 
belter accustomed than they thought for, to that sort of 
thing, I used to lead ’em on as far as I thought necessary 
or convenient — sometimes a long way — and then turn 
sharp round, and meet ’em, and say, 4 Oh, dear, how glad 
I am to come upon you so fortunate ! This London’s 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


199 


such a place, I’m blowed if I a’n’t lost again ! 5 And 
then we’d go back all together, to the public-house, and 
— ha, ha, ha ! and smoke our pipes, don’t you see ? 

44 They were very attentive to me, I am sure. It was 
a common thing, while I was living there, for some of 
’em to take me out, and show me London. They showed 
me the Prisons — showed me Newgate — and when they 
showed me Newgate, I stops at the place where the Por- 
ters pitch their loads, and says, 4 Oh dear, is this where 
they hang the men ! Oh Lor ! ’ 4 That ! ’ they says, 

4 what a simple cove he is ! That a’n’t it ! ’ And then, 
they pointed out which was it, and I says 4 Lor ? ’ and 
they says, 4 Now you’ll know it agen, won’t you ? ’ And 
I said I thought I should if I tried hard — and I assure 
you I kept a sharp look-out for the City Police when we 
were out in this way, for if any of ’em had happened to 
know me, and had spoke to me, it would have been all 
up in a minute. However, by good luck, such a thing 
never happened, and all went on quiet : though the diffi- 
culties I had in communicating with my brother officers 
were quite extraordinary. 

44 The stolen goods that were brought to the public- 
house by the Warehouse Porters, were always disposed 
of in a back parlor. For a long time, I never could get 
into this parlor, or see what was done there. As I sat 
smoking my pipe, like an innocent young chap, by fhe 
tap-room fire, I’d hear some of the parties to the robbery, 
as they came in and out, say softly to the landlord, 
4 Who’s that ? What does he do here ? ’ 4 Bless your 
soul,’ says the landlord, 4 He’s only a’ — ha, ha, ha ! — • 
he’s only a green young fellow from the country, as is 
looking for a butcher’s sitiwation. Don’t mind him ! ’ 
So, in course of time, they were so convinced of my being 


200 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


green, and got to be so accustomed to me, that I was as 
free of the parlor as any of ’em, and I have seen as much 
as Seventy Pounds worth of fine lawn sold there, ir 
one night, that was stolen from a warehouse in Friday 
Street. After the sale the buyers always stood treat — hot 
supper, or dinner, or what not — and they’d say on those 
occasions 4 Come on, Butcher ! Put your best leg fore- 
most, young ’un, and walk into it ! ’ Which I used to 
do — and hear, at table, all manner of particulars that it 
was very important for us Detectives to know. 

44 This went on for ten weeks. I lived in the public- 
house all the time, and never was out of the Butcher’s 
dress — except in bed. At last, when I had followed 
seven of the thieves, and set ’em to rights — that's an 
expression of ours, don’t you see, by which I mean to 
say that I traced ’em, and found out where the robberies 
were done, and all about ’em — Straw, and Fendall, and 
I, gave one another the office, and at the time agreed 
upon, a descent w r as made upon the public-house, and the • 
apprehensions effected. One of the first things the ofii- 
cers did, was to collar me — for the parties to the robbery 
weren’t to suppose yet, that I was anything but a Butcher 
— on which the landlord cries out, 4 Don’t take him , 1 he 
says, 4 whatever you do ! He's only a poor young chap 
from the country, and butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth ! ’ 
However, they — ha, ha, ha ! — they took me, and pre- 
tended to search my bedroom, where nothing was found 
but an old fiddle belonging to the landlord, that had got 
there somehow or another. But, it entirely changed the 
landlord’s opinion, for when it Avas produced, he says, 

‘ My fiddle ! The Butcher’s a pur-loiner ! I give him 
into custody for the robbery of a musical instrument ! ’ 

44 The man that had stolen the goods in Friday Street 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


201 


was not taken yet. He had told me, in confidence, that 
he had his suspicions there was something wrong (on 
account of the City Police having captured one of the 
party), and that he was going to make himself scarce. I 
asked him, 4 Where do you mean to go, Mr. Shepherdson ? ’ 
4 Why, Butcher,’ says he, 4 the Setting Moon in the Com 
mercial Road, is a snug house, and I shall hang out there 
for a time. 1 shall call myself Simpson, which appears 
to me to be a modest sort of a name. Perhaps you’ll 
give us a look in, Butcher ? ’ 4 Well,’ says I, 4 1 think I 

will give you a call ’ — which I fully intended, don't you 
see, because, of course, he was to be taken ! I went over 
to the Setting Moon next day, with a brother officer, and 
asked at the bar for Simpson. They pointed out his 
room, up-stairs. As we were going up, he looks down 
over the banisters, and calls out, 4 Halloa, Butcher ! is that 
you?’ 4 Yes, its me. How do you find yourself?’ 
4 Bobbish,’ he says ; 4 but who’s that with you ? ’ 4 It’s 

• only a young man, that's a friend of mine,’ I says. 
4 Come along, then,’ says he ; 4 any friend of the Butch- 
er’s is as welcome as the Butcher ! ’ So, I made my 
friend acquainted with him, and we took him into 
custody. 

44 You have no idea, sir, what a sight it was, in Court, 
when they first knew that I wasn’t a Butcher, after all ! 
I wasn’t produced at the first examination, when there 
was a remand ; but I was at the second. And when 
I stepped into the box, in full police uniform, and the 
whole party saw how they had been done, actually a 
groan of horror and dismay proceeded from ’em in the 
dock ! 

44 At the Old Bailey, when their trials came on, Mr. 
Clarkson was engaged for the defence, and he couldn't 


V 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


2 02 


make out how it was, about the Butcher. He thought, 
all along, it was a real Butcher. When the counsel for 
the prosecution said, 4 I will now call before you, gen- 
tlemen, the Police-officer,’ meaning myself, Mr. Clark- 
son says, 4 Why Police-officer ? Why more Police-offi- 
cers ? I don’t want Police. We have had a greal deal 
too much of the Police. I want the Butcher ! ’ How- 
ever, sir, he had the Butcher and the Police-officer, both 
in one. Out of seven prisoners committed for trial, five 
were found guilty, and some of ’em were transported. 
The respectable firm at the West End got a term of 
imprisonment ; and that’s the Butcher’s Story ! ” 

The story done, the chuckle-headed Butcher again re- 
solved himself into the smooth-faced Detective. But, 
he was so extremely tickled by their having taken him 
about, when he was that Dragon in disguise, to show 
him London, that he could not help reverting to that 
point in his narrative ; and gently repeating with the 
Butcher snigger, 44 4 Oh, dear,’ I says, 4 is that where 
they hang the men ? Oh, Lor ! ’ 4 That ! ’ says they. 

4 What a simple cove he is ! ’ ” 

It being now late, and the party very modest in their 
fear of being too diffuse, there were some tokens of sep- 
aration ; when Sergeant Dornton, the soldierly-looking 
man, said, looking round him with a smile : 

44 Before we break up, Sir, perhaps you might have 
some amusement in hearing of the Adventures of a Car- 
pet Bag. They are very short ; and, I think, curious.” 
We welcomed the Carpet Bag, as cordially as Mr. 
Shepherdson welcomed the false Butcher at the Setting 
Moon. Sergeant Dornton proceeded. 

44 In 1847, I was despatched to Chatham, in search 
of one Mesheck, a Jew. He had been carrying on 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


203 


pretty heavily, in the hill-stealing way, getting accept- 
ances from young men of good connections (in the army 
chiefly), on pretence of discount, and bolting with the 
same. 

“ Mesheck was off, before I got to Chatham. All T 
could learn about him was, that he had gone, probably 

i 

to London, and had with him — a Carpet Bag. 

“ I came back to town, by the last train from Black- 
wall, and made inquiries concerning a Jew Passenger 
with — a Carpet Bag. 

“ The office was shut up, it being the last train, 
There were only two or three porters left. Looking 
after a Jew with a Carpet Bag, on the Black wall Rail- 
way, which was then the high road to a great Military 
Depot, was worse than looking after a needle in a hay- 
rick. But it happened that one of these porters had 
carried, for a certain Jew, to a certain public-house, a 
certain — Carpet Bag. 

“ I went to the public-house, but the Jew had only 
left his luggage there for a few hours, and had called 
for it in a cab, and taken it away. I put such ques- 
tions there, and to the porter, as I thought prudent, and 
got at this description of — the Carpet Bag. 

“ It was a bag which had, on one side of it, worked 
in worsted, a green parrot on a stand. A green parrot 
on a stand was the means by which to identify that — 
Carpet Bag. 

“ I traced Mesheck, by means of this green parrot on 
a stand, to Cheltenham, to Birmingham, to Liverpool, 
to the Atlantic Ocean. At Liverpool he was too many 
for me. He had gone to the United States, and I gave 
jp all thoughts of Mesheck, and likewise of his — Car- 
pet Bag. 


204 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


“ Many months afterwards — near a year afterwards 
— there was a bank in Ireland robbed of seven thou- 
sand pounds, by a person of the name of Doctor Dun- 
dey, who escaped to America ; from which country some 
of the stolen notes came home. He was supposed to 
have bought a farm in New Jersey. Under proper 
management, that estate could be seized and sold, for 
the benefit of the parties he had defrauded. I was 
sent off to America for this purpose. 

I landed at Boston. I went on to New York. I 
found that he had lately changed New York paper- 
money for New Jersey paper-money, and had banked 
cash in New Brunswick. To take this Doctor Dundey, 
it was necessary to entrap him into the State of New 
York, which required a deal of artifice and trouble. At 
one time, he couldn’t be drawn into an appointment. At 
another time, he appointed to come to meet me, and a 
New York officer, on a pretext I made ; and then his 
children had the measles. At last he came, per steam- 
boat, and I took him, and lodged him in a New York 
prison called the Tombs ; which I dare say you know, 
sir ? ” 

Editorial acknowledgment to that effect. 

“ I went to the Tombs, on the morning after his cap- 
ture, to attend the examination before the magistrate. 
I was passing through the magistrate’s private room, 
when, happening to look round me to take notice of the 
place, as we generally have a habit of doing, I clapped 
my eyes, in one corner, on a — Carpet Bag. 

“ What did I see upon that Carpet Bag, if you’ll be- 
lieve me, but a green parrot on a stand, as large as 
life ! 

“ ‘ That Carpet Bag, with the representation of a 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


205 


green parrot on a stand/ said I, ‘ belongs to an English 
Jew, named Aaron Mesheck, and to no other man, alive 
or dead ! 9 

“ I give you my word the New York Police officers 
were doubled up with surprise. 

“ 6 How do you ever come to know that ? ’ said they. 

“ 4 1 think I ought to know that green parrot by this 
time,’ said I ; ‘ for I have had as pretty a dance after 
that bird, at home, as ever I had, in all my life ! ’ ” 

u And was it Mesheck’s ? ” we submissively inquired. 

“ Was it, sir ? Of course it was ! He was in cus- 
tody for another offence, in that very identical Tombs, 
at that very identical time. And, more than that ! 
Some memoranda, relating to the fraud for which I had 
vainly endeavored to take him, were found to be, at that 
moment, lying in that very same individual — Carpet 
Bag ! ” 


Such are the curious coincidences and such is the 
peculiar ability, always sharpening and being improved 
by practice, and always adapting itself to every variety 
of circumstances, and opposing itself to every new de- 
vice that perverted ingenuity can invent, for which this 
important social branch of the public service is remark- 
able ! Forever on the watch, with their wits stretched 
to the utmost, these officers have, from day to day and 
year to year, to set themselves against every novelty of 
trickery and dexterity that the combined imaginations 
of all the lawless rascals in England can devise, and to * 
keep pace with every such invention that comes out. 
In the Courts of Justice, the materials of thousands of 
such stories as we have narrated — often elevated into 


206 


THE DETECTIVE POLICE. 


the marvellous and romantic, by the circumstances of 
the case — are dryly compressed into the set phrase, 
“ in consequence of information I received, I did so and 
so.” Suspicion was to be directed, by careful inference 
and deduction, upon the right person ; the right person 
was to be taken, wherever he had gone, or whatever he 
was doing to avoid detection : he is taken ; there he is 
at the bar ; that is enough. From information, I, the 
officer, received, I did it ; and, according to the custom 
in these cases, I say no more. 

These games of chess, played with live pieces, are 
played before small audiences, and are chronicled no- 
where. The interest of the game supports the player. 
Its results are enough for Justice. To compare great 
things with small, suppose Leverrier or Adams in- 
forming the public that from information he ha(J re- 
ceived he had discovered a new planet ; or Columbus 
informing the public of his day that from information he 
had received he had discovered a new continent ; so the 
Detectives inform it that they have discovered a new 
fraud or an old offender, and the process is unknown. 

Thus, at midnight, closed the proceedings of our cu- 
rious and interesting party. But one other circum- 
stance finally wound up the evening, after our Detec- 
tive guests had left us. One of the sharpest among 
them, and the officer best acquainted with the Swell 
Mob, had his pocket picked, going home ! 


THREE “DETECTIVE” ANECDOTES. 


♦ 

I. — THE PAIR OF GLOVES. 

“ It’s a singular story, Sir,” said Inspector Wield, of 
the Detective Police, who, in company with Sergeants 
Dornton and Mith, paid us another twilight visit, one 
July evening ; “ and I’ve been thinking you might like to 
know it. 

“ It’s concerning the murder of the young woman, 
Eliza Grimwood, some years ago, over in the Waterloo 
Road. She was commonly called The Countess, because 
of her handsome appearance and her proud way of carry- 
ing of herself ; and when I saw the poor Countess (I had 
known her well to speak to), lying dead, with her throat 
cut, on the floor of her bedroom, you’ll believe me that 
a variety of reflections calculated to make a man rather 
low in his spirits, came into my head. 

“ That’s neither here nor there. I went to the house 
the morning after the murder, and examined the body, 
and made a general observation of the bedroom, where 
it was. Turning down the pillow of the bed with my 
hand, I found, underneath it, a pair of gloves. A pair 
of gentleman’s dress gloves, very dirty ; and inside the 
lining, the letters Tr, and a cross. 

“ Well, Sir, I took them gloves away, and I showed 
em to the magistrate, over at Union Hall, before whom 
the case was. He says, 6 Wield,’ he says, 6 there’s no 


208 


THREE “ DETECTIVE ” ANECDOTES. 


doubt this is a discovery that may lead to something very 
important ; and what you have to do, Wield, is, to find 
out the owner of these gloves.’ 

“ I was of the same opinion, of course, and I went at 
it immediately. I looked at the gloves pretty narrowly, 
and it was my opinion that they had been cleaned. 
There was a smell of sulphur and rosin about ’em, you 
know, which cleaned gloves usually have, more or less. 
I took ’em over to a friend of mine at Kennington, who 
was in that line, and I put it to him. ‘ What do you 
say now ? Have these gloves been cleaned ? ’ ‘ These 

gloves have been cleaned,’ says he. £ Have you any idea 
who cleaned them ? ’ says I. £ Not at all,’ says he ; ‘ I've 
a very distinct idea who didn't clean ’em, and that’s my- 
self. But I’ll tell you what, Wield, there a’n’t above 
eight or nine reg’lar glove cleaners in London,’ — there 
were not, at that time, it seems, — 1 and I think I can 
give you their addresses, and you may find out, by that 
means, who did clean ’em.’ Accordingly, he gave me the 
directions, and I went here, and I went there, and I looked 
up this man, and I looked up that man ; but, though they 
all agreed that the gloves had been cleaned, I couldn’t find 
the man, woman, or child, that had cleaned that aforesaid 
pair of gloves. 

“ What with this person not being at home, and that 
person being expected home in the afternoon, and so 
forth, the inquiry took me three days. On the evening 
of the third day, coming over Waterloo Bridge from the 
Surrey side of the river, quite beat, and very much vexed 
and disappointed, I thought I’d have a shilling’s worth of 
entertainment at the Lyceum Theatre to freshen myself 
up. So I went into the Pit, at half-price, and I sat my- 
self down next to a very quiet, modest sort of young 


THREE “ DETECTIVE ” ANECDOTES. 


209 


man. Seeing I was a stranger (which I thought it just 
as well to appear to be) he told me the names of the 
actors on the stage, and we got into conversation. When 
the play was over, we came out together, and I said, 

4 We’ve bden very companionable and agreeable, and 
perhaps you wouldn’t object to a drain ? ’ 4 Well, you’re 

very good,’ says he ; 4 1 shouldn't object to a drain.’ Ac- 
cordingly, we went to a public-house, near the Theatre, 
sat ourselves down in a quiet room up-stairs on the first 
floor, and called for a pint of half-and-half, a-piece, and a 
pipe. 

44 Well, Sir, we put our pipes aboard, and we drank 
our half-and-half, and sat a talking, very sociably, when 
the young man says, 4 You must excuse me stopping very 
long,’ he says, 4 because I’m forced to go home in good 
time. I must be at work all night.’ 4 At work all night ? ’ 
says I. 4 You a’n’t a baker ? ’ 4 No,’ he says, laughing, 

4 1 a’n’t a baker.’ 4 1 thought not,’ says I, 4 you haven’t 
the looks of a baker.’ 4 No,’ says he, 4 I’m a glove- 
cleaner.’ 

44 1 never was more astonished in my life, than when I 
heard them words come out of his lips. 4 You’re a glove- 
cleaner, are you ? ’ says I. 4 Yes,’ he says, 4 1 am.’ 4 Then, 
perhaps,’ says I, taking the gloves out of my pocket, 4 you 
can tell me who cleaned this pair of gloves ? It’s a rum 
story,’ I says. 4 1 was dining over at Lambeth, the other 
day, at a free-and-easy — quite promiscuous — with a 
public company — when some gentleman, he left these 
gloves behind him ! Another gentleman and me, you 
see, we laid a wager of a sovereign, that I wouldn’t find 
out who they belonged to. I’ve spent as much as seven 
shillings already, in trying to discover ; but, if you could 
help me, I'd stand another seven and welcome. You see 

14 


VOL. II. 


210 


THREE “DETECTIVE” ANECDOTES. 


there’s Tr and a cross, inside. 4 I see,’ he says. 4 Bless 
you, 1 know these gloves very well ! I’ve seen dozens 
of pairs belonging to the same party.’ 4 No ? ’ says I. 
4 Yes,’ says he. 4 Then you know who cleaned ’em ? ’ 
says I. 4 Rather so,’ says he. 4 My father cleaned ’em.’ 

44 Where does your father live ? ’ says I. 4 Just round 
the corner,’ says the young man, 4 near Exeter Street, here. 
He’ll tell you who they belong to, directly.’ 4 Would 
you come round with me now ? ’ says I. 4 Certainly,’ 
says he, 4 but you needn’t tell my father that you found 
me at the play, you know, because he mightn’t like it..’ 
4 All right ! ’ W r e went round to the place, and there we 
found an old man in a white apron, with two or three 
daughters, all rubbing and cleaning away at lots of gloves, 
in a front parlor. 4 Oh, Father ! ’ says the young man, 
4 here’s a person been and made a bet about the owner- 
ship of a pair of gloves, and I’ve told him you can settle 
it.’ 4 Good evening, Sir,’ says I to the old gentleman. 
4 Here’s the gloves your son speaks of. Letters Tr, you 
see, and a cross.’ 4 Oh yes,’ he says, 4 1 kncnv these gloves 
very well ; I’ve cleaned dozens of pairs of ’em. They 
belong to Mr. Trinkle, the great upholsterer in Cheap- 
side.’ 4 Did you get ’em from Mr. Trinkle, direct,’ says 
I, 4 if you’ll excuse my asking the question ? ’ 4 No,’ says 
he , 4 Mr. Trinkle always sends ’em to Mr. Phibbs’s, the 
haberdasher’s, opposite his shop, and the haberdasher 
sends ’em to me.’ 4 Perhaps you wouldn’t object to 
drain ? ’ says I. 4 Not in the least ! ’ says he. So I tool 
the old gentleman out, and had a little more talk with 
him and his son, over a glass, and we parted ex-cellent 
friends. 

44 This was late on a Saturday night. First thing on 
the Monday morning, I went to the haberdasher’s shop. 


THREE “DETECTIVE’ ANECDOTES. 


211 


opposite Mr. Trinkle’s, the great upholsterer’s in Cheap- 
side. 4 Mr. Pliibbs in the way ? ’ 4 My name is Pliibbs.’ 

4 Oh ! I believe you sent this pair of gloves to be cleaned ? 
‘Yes, I did, for young Mr. Trinkle over the way. There 
he is, in the shop ! ’ 4 Oh ! that’s him in the shop, is it ? 

Him in the green coat ? ’ 4 The same individual.’ 4 Weil, 
Mr. Pliibbs, this is an unpleasant affair ; but the fact is, 
I am Inspector Wield of the Detective Police, and I 
found these gloves under the pillow of the young woman 
that was murdered the other day, over in the Waterloo 
Poad ? ’ 4 Good Heaven ! ’ says he. 4 He’s a most re- 

spectable young man, and if his father was to hear of it, 
it would be the ruin of him ! ’ 4 I’m very sorry for it,’ says 
1, 4 but I must take him into custody.’ 4 Good Heaven ! ’ 
says Mr. Pliibbs, again ; 4 can nothing be done ? ’ 4 Noth- 
ing,’ says I. 4 Will you allow me to chll him over here,’ 
says he, 4 that his father may not see it done ? ’ 4 1 don’t 

object to that,’ says I ; 4 but unfortunately, Mr. Pliibbs, I 
can’t allow of any communication between you. If any 
was attempted, I should have to interfere directly. Per- 
haps you’ll beckon him over here ? ’ Mr. Pliibbs went 
to the door and beckoned, and the young fellow came 
across the street directly ; a smart, brisk young fellow. 

44 4 Good morning, Sir,’ says I. 4 Good morning, Sir,’ 
says he. 4 Would you allow me to inquire, Sir,’ says I, 
4 if you ever had any acquaintance with a party of the 
name of Grimwood ? ’ 4 Grimwood ! Grimwood ! ’ says 
he, 4 No ! ’ 4 You know the Waterloo Road ? ’ 4 Oh ! of 
course I know the Waterloo Road ! ’ 4 Happen to have 

heard of a young woman being murdered there ? ’ 4 Yes, 
I read it in the paper, and very sorry I was to read it.’ 
4 Here’s a pair of gloves belonging to you, that I found 
ander her pillow the morning afterwards ! ’ 


212 


THREE “DETECTIVE” ANECDOTES. 


“ He was in a dreadful state, Sir ; a dreadful state ! 
‘ Mr. Wield,’ he says, 6 upon my solemn oath I never was 
there. I never so much as saw her, to my knowledge, in 
my life ! ’ ‘ I am very sorry,’ says I. ‘ To tell you the 

truth ; I don’t think you are the murderer, but I must take 
you to Union Hall in a cab. However, I think it’s a 
case of that sort, that, at present, at all events, the magis 
trate will hear it in private.’ 

“ A private examination took place, and then it came 
out that this young man was acquainted with a cousin of 
the unfortunate Eliza Grimwood’s, and that, calling to see 
this cousin a day or two before the murder, he left these 
gloves upon the table. Who should come in, shortly 
afterwards, but Eliza Grimwood ! ‘ Whose gloves are 

these ? ’ she says, taking ’em up. 6 Those are Mr. Trin- 
kle’s gloves,’ says her cousin. 4 Oh ! ’ says she, ‘ they are 
very dirty, and of no use to him, I am sure. I shall take 
’em away for my girl to clean the stoves with.’ And she 
put ’em in her pocket. The girl had used ’em to clean 
the stoves, and I have no doubt, had left ’em lying on the 
bedroom mantel-piece, or on the drawers, or somewhere ; 
and her mistress, looking round to see that the room was 
tidy, had caught ’em up and put ’em under the pillow 
where I found ’em. 

“ That’s the story, Sir.” 

II. — THE ARTFUL TOUCH. 

“ One of the most beautiful things that ever was done, 
perhaps,” said Inspector Wield, emphasizing the adjec- 
tive, as preparing us to expect dexterity or ingenuity 
rather than strong interest, “ was a move of Sergeant 
Witchem’s. It was a lovely idea ! 


THREE “ DETECTIVE ” ANECDOTES. 


213 


“ Witchem and me were down at Epsom one Derby 
Day, waiting at the station for the Swell Mob. As I 
mentioned, when we were talking about these things be- 
fore, we are ready at the station when there’s races, or 
an Agricultural Show, or a Chancellor sworn in for an 
university, or Jenny Lind, or anything of that sort ; and 
as the Swell Mob come down, we send ’em back again 
by the next train. But some of the Swell Mob, on the 
occasion of this Derby that I refer to, so far kiddied us 
as to hire a horse and shay ; start away from London by 
Whitechapel, and miles round ; come into Epsom from 
the opposite direction ; and go to work, right and left, on 
the course, while we were waiting for ’em at t le Bail. 
That, however, a’n’t the point of what I’m going to tell you. 

“ While Witchem and me were waiting at the station, 
there comes up one Mr. Tatt ; a gentleman formerly in 
the public line, quite an amateur Detective in his way, 
and very much respected. ‘ Halloa, Charley Wield,’ he 
says. ‘ What are you doing here ? On the look-out for 
some of your old friends ? ’ f Yes, the old move, Mr. 
Tatt.’ 6 Come along,’ he says, 6 you and Witchem, and 
have a glass of sherry.’ ‘We can’t stir from the place,’ 
says I, ‘ till the next train comes in ; but after that, we 
wdll with pleasure.’ Mr. Tatt waits, and the train comes 
in, and then Witchem and me go off with him to the 
Hotel. Mr. Tatt he’s got up quite regardless of ex- 
pense, for the occasion ; and in his shirt-front there’s a 
beautiful diamond prop, cost him fifteen or twenty pound 
— a very handsome pin indeed. We drink our sherry 
at the bar, and have had our three or four glasses, when 
Witchem cries suddenly, 4 Look out, Mr. Wield ! stand 
fast ! ’ and a dash is made into the place by the swell 
mob — four of ’em — that have come down as I tell you, 


214 


THREE “DETECTIVE” ANECDOTES. 


and in a moment Mr. Tatt’s prop is gone ! Witchem, he 
cuts ’em off at the door, I lay about me as hard as I can, 
Mr. Tatt shows fight like a good ’un, and there we are, 
all down together, heads and heels, knocking about on 
the floor of the bar — perhaps you never see such a 
cene of confusion ! However, we stick to our mer 
(Mr. Tatt being as good as any officer), and we take 
’em all, and carry ’em off to the station. The station’s 
full of people, who have been took on the course ; and 
it’s a precious piece of work to get ’em secured. How- 
ever, we do it at last, and we search ’em ; but nothing’s 
found upon ’em, and they’re locked up ; and a pretty 
state of heat we are in by that time, I assure you ! 

44 I was very blank over it, myself, to think that the 
prop had been passed away ; and I said to Witchem, 
when we had set ’em to rights, and were cooling our- 
selves along with Mr. Tatt, 4 we don’t take much by this 
move, anyway, for nothing’s found upon ’em, and it’s only 
the braggadocia * after all.’ 4 What do you mean, Mr. 
Wield,’ says Witchem. 4 Here’s the diamond pin ! ’ and 
in the palm of his hand there it was, safe and sound ! 
4 Why, in the name of wonder,’ says me and Mr. Tatt, 
in astonishment, 4 how did you come by that ? ’ 4 I’ll 

tell you how I come by it,’ says he. 4 1 saw which of 
’em took it ; and when we were all down on the floor 
together, knocking about, I just gave him a little touch 
on the back of his hand, as I knew his pal would ; and 
he thought it was his pal ; and gave it me ! ’ It was 
beautiful, beau-ti-ful ! 

44 Even that was hardly the best of the case, for that 
chap was tried at the Quarter Sessions at Guildford, 
You know what Quarter Sessions are, sir. Well, if 

* Three months’ imprisonment as reputed thieves. 


THREE “DETECTIVE” ANECDOTES. 


215 


you’ll believe me, while them slow justices were looking 
over the Acts of Parliament, to see what they could do 
to him, I’m blowed if he didn’t cut out of the dock be- 
fore their faces ! He cut out of the dock, sir, then and 
there ; swam across a river ; and got up into a tree to 
dry himself. In the tree he was took — an old woman 
having seen him climb up — and Witchem’s artful touch 
transported him ! ” 


III. — THE SOFA. 

“ What young men will do, sometimes, to ruin them- 
selves and break their friends’ hearts,” said Sergeant 
Dornton, “ it’s surprising ! I had a case at Saint Blank’s 
Hospital which was of this sort. A bad case, indeed, 
with a bad end ! 

“The Secretary, and the House-Surgeon, and the 
Treasurer, of Saint Blank’s Hospital, came to Scotland 
Yard to give information of numerous robberies having 
been committed on the students. The students could 
leave nothing in the pockets of their great-coats, while 
the great-coats were hanging at the hospital, but it was 
almost certain to be stolen. Property of various descrip- 
tions was constantly being lost ; and the gentlemen were 
naturally uneasy about it, and anxious, for the credit of 
the institution, that the thief or thieves should be dis- 
covered. The case was intrusted to me, and I went to 
the hospital. 

“ 4 Now, gentlemen,’ said I, after we had talked it 
over ; 6 1 understand this property is usually lost from 
one room.’ 

“ Yes, they said. It was. 

“ ‘ I should wish, if you please,’ said I, * to see the 

mom.’ 


216 


THREE “DETECTIVE” ANECDOTES. 


44 It was a good-sized bare room down-stairs, with a 
few tables and forms in it, and a row of pegs, all round, 
for hats and coats. 

“ 4 Next, gentlemen,’ said I, 4 do you suspect any- 
body ? ’ 

“ Yes, they said. They did suspect somebody. They 
svere sorry to say, they suspected one of the porters. 

“ 4 I should like,’ said I, 4 to have that man pointed out 
to me, and to have a little time to look after him.’ 

44 He was pointed out, and I looked after him, and then 
I went back to the hospital, and said, 4 Now, gentlemen, 
it’s not the porter. He’s, unfortunately for himself, a 
little too fond of drink, but he’s nothing worse. My sus- 
picion is, that these robberies are committed by one of 
the students ; and if you’ll put me a sofa into that room 
where the pegs are — as there’s no closet — I think I 
shall be able to detect the thief. I wish the sofa, if you 
please, to be covered with chintz, or something of that 
sort, so that I may lie on my chest, underneath it, with- 
out being seen.’ 

44 The sofa was provided, and next day at eleven 
o’clock, before any of the students came, I went there, 
with those gentlemen, to get underneath it. It turned 
out to be one of those old-fashioned sofas with a great 
cross-beam at the bottom, that would have broken my 
back in no time if I could ever have got below it. We 
ad quite a job to break all this away in the time ; how- 
ver, I fell to work, and they fell to work, and we broke 
*t out, and made a clear place for me. I got under the 
sofa, lay down on my chest, took out my knife, and made 
a convenient hole in the chintz to look through. It was 
then settled between me and the gentlemen that when 
the students were all up in the wards, one of the gentle- 







THREE “DETECTIVE” ANECDOTES. 


217 


men should come in, and hang up a great-coat on one of 
the pegs. And that that great-coat should have, in one 
of the pockets, a pocket-book containing marked money. 

“ After I had been there some time, the students be- 
gan to drop into the room, by ones, and twos, and threes, 
and to talk about all sorts of things, little thinking there 
was anybody under the sofa — and then to go up-stairs. 
At last there came in one who remained until he was 
alone in the room by himself. A tallish, good-looking 
young man of one or two and twenty, with a light 
whisker. He went to a particular hat-peg, took off a 
good hat that was hanging there, tried it on, hung his 
own hat in its place, and hung that hat on another peg, 
nearly opposite to me. I then felt quite certain that he 
was the thief, and would come back by and by. 

“ When they were all up-stairs, the gentleman came 
in with the great-coat. I showed him where to hang it, 
so that I might have a good view of it ; and he went 
away ; and I lay under the sofa on my chest, for a couple 
of hours or so, waiting. 

u At last, the same young man came down. He walked 
across the room, whistling — stopped and listened — took 
another walk and whistled — stopped again, and listened 
— then began to go regularly round the pegs, feeling in 
the pockets of all the coats. When he came to the 
great-coat, and felt the pocket-book, he was so eager and 
o hurried that he broke the strap in tearing it open. As 
e began to put the money in his pocket, I crawled out 
from under the sofa, and his eyes met mine. 

“ My face, as you may perceive, is brown now, but it 
was pale at that time, my health not being good ; and 
looked as long as a horse’s. Besides which, there was a 
great draught of air from the door, underneath the sofa. 


218 


THREE u DETECTIVE ” ANECDOTES. 


and I had tied a handkerchief round my head ; so what 
I looked like, altogether, I don’t know. He turned blue 
— literally blue — when he saw me crawling out, and I 
couldn’t feel surprised at it. 

“ 6 I am an officer of the Detective Police,’ said I, ‘ and 
have been lying here since you first came in this morn- 
ing. I regret, for the sake of yourself and your friends, 
that you should have done what you have ; but this case 
is complete. You have the pocket-book in your hand 
and the money upon you ; and I must take you into 
custody ! ’ 

“ It was impossible to make out any case in his behalf, 
and on his trial he pleaded guilty. How or when he got 
the means I don’t know ; but while he was awaiting his 
sentence, he poisoned himself in Newgate.” 

We inquired of this officer, on the conclusion of the 
foregoing anecdote, whether the time appeared long, or 
short, when he lay in that constrained position under the 
sofa ? 

“ Why, you see, sir,” he replied, “ if he hadn’t come 
in, the first time, and I had not been quite sure he was 
the thief, and would return, the time would have seemed 
long. But, as it was, I being dead-certain of my man, 
the time seemed pretty short.” 


ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 


♦ 

% 

y 

How goes the night ? Saint Giles’s clock is striking 
nine. The weather is dull and wet, and the long lines 
of street lamps are blurred, as if we saw them through 
tears. A damp wind blows and rakes the pieman’s tire 
out, when he opens the door of his little furnace, carry- 
ing away an eddy of sparks. 

Saint Giles’s clock strikes nine. We are punctual 
Where is Inspector Field ? Assistant Commissioner of 
Police is already here, enwrapped in oil-skin cloak, and 
standing in the shadow of Saint Giles’s steeple. Detec- 
tive Sergeant, weary of speaking French all day to for- 
eigners unpacking at the Great Exhibition, is already 
here. Where is Inspector Field ? 

Inspector Field is, to-night, the guardian genius of the 
British Museum. He is bringing his shrewd eye to bear 
on every corner of its solitary galleries, before he re- 
ports “ all right.” Suspicious of the Elgin marbles, and 
not to be done by cat-faced Egyptian giants with their 
hands upon their knees, Inspector Field, sagacious, vigi- 
lant, lamp in hand, throwing monstrous shadows on the 
walls and ceilings, passes through the spacious rooms. 
If a mummy trembled in an atom of its dusty covering, 
Inspector Field would say, “ Come out of that, Tom 
Green. I know you ! ” If the smallest “ Gonoph ” 
about town were crouching at the bottom of a classic 


220 


ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 


bath, Inspector Field would nose him with a finer scent 
than the ogre’s, when adventurous Jack lay trembling in 
his kitchen copper. But all is quiet, and Inspector Field 
goes warily on, making little outward show of attending 
to anything in particular, just recognizing the Ichthyo- 
saurus as a familiar acquaintance, and wondering, per 
haps, how the detectives did it in the days before tli 
Flood. 

Will Inspector Field be long about this work ? He 
may be half an hour longer. He sends his compliments 
by Police Constable, and proposes that we meet at St. 
Giles’s Station House, across the road. Good. It were 
as well to stand by the fire, there, as in the shadow of 
Saint Giles’s steeple. 

Anything doing here to-night ? Not much. We are 
very quiet. A lost boy, extremely calm and small, sit- 
ting by the fire, whom we now confide to a constable to 
take home, for the child says that if you show him New- 
gate Street, he can show you where he lives — a raving 
drunken woman in the cells, who has screeched her voice 
away, and has hardly power enough left to declare, even 
with the passionate help of her feet and arms, that she 
is the daughter of a British officer, and, strike her blind 
and dead, but she’ll write a letter to the Queen ! but who 
is soothed with a drink of water — in another cell, a 
quiet woman with a child at her breast, for begging — 
in another, her husband in a smock-frock, with a basket 
of watercresses — in another a pickpocket — in another, 
a meek tremulous old pauper man who has been out for 
a holiday “ and has took but a little drop, but it has over- 
come him arter so many months in the house ” — and 
that’s all as yet. Presently, a sensation at the Station 
House door. Mr. Field, gentlemen ! 


ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 


221 


Inspector Field comes in, wiping his forehead, for he 
is of a burly figure, and has come fast from the ores and 
metals of the deep mines of the earth, and from the Par- 
rot Gods of the South Sea Islands, and from the birds 
and beetles of the tropics, and from the Arts of Greece 
and Rome, and from the sculptures of Nineveh, and from 
the traces of an elder world, when these were not. I? 
Rogers ready? Rogers is ready, strapped and grea 
coated, with a flaming eye in the middle of his waist, 
like a deformed Cyclops. Lead on, Rogers, to Rats’ 
Castle ! 

How many people may there be in London, who, if we 
had brought them deviously and blindfolded to this street, 
fifty paces from the Station House, and within call of 
Saint Giles’s Church, would know it for not a remote part 
of the city in which their lives are passed ? How many, 
who amidst this compound of sickening smells, these 
heaps of filth, these tumbling houses, with all their vile 
contents, animate, and inanimate, slimily overflowing into 
the black road, would believe that they breathe this air ? 
How much Red Tape may there be, that could look 
round on the faces which now hem us in — for our 
appearance here has caused a rush from all points to a 
common centre — the lowering foreheads, the sallow 
cheeks, the brutal eyes, the matted hair, the infected, 
vermin-haunted heaps of rags — and say “ I have thought 
>f this. I have not dismissed the thing. I have neither 
lustered it away, nor frozen it away, nor tied it up and 
put it away, nor smoothly said pooh, pooh ! to it, when it 
has been shown to me ” ? 

This is not what Rogers wants to know, however. 
What Rogers wants to know, is, whether you will clear 
die way here, some of you, or whether you won’t ; be- 


222 


ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 


cause if you don’t do it right on end, he’ll lock you 
up ! What ! You are there, are you, Boh Miles ? 
You haven’t had enough of it yet, haven’t you ? You 
want three months more, do you ? Come away from 
that gentleman ! What are you creeping round there 
for? 

“ What am I a-doing, thinn, Mr. Rogers ? ” says Bob 
Miles, appearing, villanous, at the end of a lane of light, 
made by the lantern. 

“ I’ll let you know pretty quick, if you don’t hook it. 
Will you hook it ? ” 

A sycophantic murmur rises from the crowd. “ Hook 
it, Bob, when Mr. Rogers and Mr. Field tells you ! Why 
don’t you hook it, when you are told to ? ” 

The most importunate of the voices strikes familiarly 
on Mr. Rogers’s ear. He suddenly turns his lantern on 
the owner. 

“ What ! You are there, are you, Mister Click ? You 
hook it too — come ? ” 

“ What for ? ” says Mr. Click, discomfited. 

“You hook it, will you ! ” says Mr. Rogers with stern 
emphasis. 

Both Click and Miles do “ hook it,” without another 
word, or, in plainer English, sneak away. 

“ Close up there, my men ! ” says Inspector Field to 
two constables on duty who have followed. “ Keep to- 
gether gentlemen ; w r e are going down here. Heads ! ” 

Saint Giles’s church strikes half-past ten. We stoop 
low, and creep down a precipitous flight of steps into a 
dark close cellar. There is a fire. There is a long deal 
table. There are benches. The cellar is full of com- 
pany, chiefly very young men in various conditions of 
dirt and raggedness. Some are eating supper. There 


ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 


223 


sire no girls or women present. Welcome to Rats’ Castle, 
gentlemen, and to this company of noted thieves ! 

“ Well, my lads ! How are you, my lads ? What 
have you been 'doing to-day? Here’s some company 
come to see you, m3 lads ! There's a plate of beefsteak, 
Sir, for the supper of a line young man ! And there’s 
a mouth for a steak, Sir ! Why, I should be too proud of 
such a mouth as that, if I had it myself! Stand up and 
show it, sir ! Take off your cap. There’s a fine young 
man for a nice little party, Sir ! A’n’t he ? ” 

Inspector Field is the bustling speaker. Inspector 
Field’s eye is the roving eye that searches every corner 
of the cellar as he talks. Inspector Field’s hand is the 
well-known hand that has collared half the people here, 
and motioned their brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, 
male and female friends, inexorably to New South Wales. 
Yet Inspector Field stands in this den, the Sultan of the 
place. Every thief here cowers before him, like a 
schoolboy before his schoolmaster. All watch him, all 
answer when addressed, all laugh at his jokes, all seek 
to propitiate him. This cellar-company alone — to say 
nothing of the crowd surrounding the entrance from the 
street above, and making the steps shine with eyes — 
is strong enough to murder us all, and willing enough to 
do it ; but, let Inspector Field have a mind to pick out 
one thief here and take him ; let him produce that 
ghostly truncheon from his pocket, and say, with his 
business-air, “ My lad, I want you ! ” and all Rats’ 
Castle shall be stricken with paralysis, and not a finger 
move against him, as he fits the handcuffs on ! 

Where’s the Earl of Warwick ? — Here he is, Mr. 
Field! Here’s the Earl of Warwick, Mr. Field! — O 
there you are, my Lord. Come for’ard. There’s a 


224 


ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 


chest, Sir, not to have a clean shirt on. A’n’t it ? Take 
your hat off, my Lord. Why, I should be ashamed if I 
was you — and an Earl, too — to show myself to a gen- 
tleman with my hat on ! — The Earl of Warwick laughs 
and uncovers. All the company laugh. One pick- 
pocket, especially, laughs with great enthusiasm. 0 
what a jolly game it is, when Mr. Field comes down — 
and don’t want nobody ! 

So you are here, too, are you, you tall, gray, soldierly- 
looking, grave man, standing by the fire ? — Yes, Sir. 
Good evening, Mr. Field! — Let us see. You lived 
servant to a nobleman once ? — Yes, Mr. Field. — And 
what is it you do now ; I forget ? — Well, Mr. Field, I 
job about as well as I can. I left my employment on 
account of delicate health. The family is still kind to 
me. Mr. Wix of Piccadilly is also very kind to me 
when I am hard up. Likewise Mr. Nix of Oxford 
Street. I get a trifle from them occasionally, and rub 
on as well as I can, Mr. Field. Mr. Field’s eye rolls 
enjoyingly, for this man is a notorious begging-letter 
writer. — Good night, my lads ! — Good night, Mr. Field, 
and thank’ee, Sir ! 

Clear the street here, half a thousand of you ! Cut 
it, Mrs. Stalker — none of that — we don’t want you ! 
Rogers of the flaming eye, lead on to the tramps’ lodg- 
ing-house ! 

A dream of baleful faces attends to the door. Now, 
stand back all of you ! In the rear Detective Sergeant 
plants himself, composedly whistling, with his strong 
right arm across the narrow passage. Mrs. Stalker, I am 
something’d that need not be written here, if you don’t 
get yourself into trouble, in about half a minute, it I 
see that face of yours again ! 


UN DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 


225 


Saint Giles’s church clock, striking eleven, hums 
through our hand from the dilapidated door of a dark 
outhouse as we open it, and are stricken back by the 
pestilent breath that issues from within. Rogers to the 
front with the light, and let us look ! 

Ten, twenty, thirty — who can count them ! Men 
women, children, for the most part naked, heaped upon 
the floor like maggots in a cheese ! Ho ! In that dark 
corner yonder ! Does anybody lie there ? Me Sir, 
Irish me, a widder, with six children. And yonder ? 
Me Sir, Irish me, with me wife and eight poor babes. 
And to the left there ? Me Sir, Irish me, along with 
two more Irish boys as is me friends. And to the right 
there ? Me Sir, and the Murphy fam’ly, numbering five 
blessed souls. And what’s this, coiling, now, about my 
foot? Another Irish me, pitifully in want of shaving, 
whom I have awakened from sleep — and across my 
other foot lies his wife — and by the shoes of Inspector 
Field lie their three eldest — and their three youngest 
are at present squeezed between the open door and the 
wall. And why is there no one on that little mat be- 
fore the sullen fire ? Because O’Donovan, with his wife 
and daughter, is not come in from selling Lucifers ! Nor 
on the bit of sacking in the nearest corner ? Bad luck ! 
Because that Irish family is late to-night, a-cadging in 
the streets ! 

They are all awake now, the children excepted, and 
most of them sit up, to stare. Wheresoever Mr. Rogers 
turns the flaming eye, there is a spectral figure rising, 
unshrouded, from a grave of rags. Who is the landlord 
here ? — I am, Mr. Field ! says a bundle of ribs and 
parchment against the wall, scratching itself. — Will you 
spend this money fairly, in the morning, to buy coffee 

15 


VOL. II. 


226 


ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 


For ’em all ? — Yes Sir, I will ! — 0 he’ll do it Sir, he’ll 
do it fair. He’s honest ! cry the spectres. And with 
thanks and Good Night sink into their graves again. 

Thus, we make our New Oxford Streets, and our other 
new streets, never heeding, never asking, where the 
wretches whom we clear out, crowd. With such scenes 
at our doors, with all the plagues of Egypt tied up with 
bits of cobweb in kennels so near our homes, we timor- 
ously make our Nuisance Bills and Boards of Health, 
nonentities, and think to keep away the Wolves of Crime 
and Filth, by our electioneering ducking to little vestry- 
men and our gentlemanly handling of Bed Tape ! 

Intelligence of the coffee money has got abroad. The 
yard is full, and Bogers of the flaming eye is beleagured 
with entreaties to show other Lodging Houses. Mine 
next ! Mine ! Mine ! Bogers, military, obdurate, stiff- 
necked, immovable, replies not, but leads away ; all 
falling back before him. Inspector Field follows. De- 
tective Sergeant, with his barrier of arm across the little 
passage, deliberately waits to close the procession. He 
sees behind him, without any effort, and exceedingly dis- 
turbs one individual far in the rear by coolly calling out, 
“ It won’t do, Mr. Michael ! Don’t try it ! ” 

After council holden in the street, we enter other lodg- 
ing-houses, public-houses, many lairs and holes ; all noi- 
some and offensive ; none so filthy and so crowded as where 
Irish are. In one, The Ethiopian party are expected 
iome presently — were in Oxford Street when last heard 
of — shall be fetched, for our delight, within ten minutes. 
In another, one of the two or three Professors who draw 
Napoleon Bonaparte and a couple of mackarel, on the 
pavement, and then let the work of art out to a specula- 
tor, is refreshing afte his labors. In another, the vested 


ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR HELD. 


227 


interest of the profitable nuisance has been in one family 
for a hundred years, and the landlord drives in comfort- 
ably from the country to his snug little stew in town. 
In all, Inspector Field is received with warmth. Coin 
ers and smashers droop before him ; pickpockets defer t r 
him ; the gentle sex (not very gentle here) smile upoi 
him. Half-drunken hags check themselves in the midst 
of pots of beer, or pints of gin, to drink to Mr. Field, 
and pressingly to ask the honor of his finishing the 
draught. One beldame in rusty black has such admi- 
ration for him, that she runs a whole street’s length to 
shake him by the hand ; tumbling into a heap of mud by 
the way, and still pressing her attentions when her very 
form has ceased to be distinguishable through it. Before 
the power of the law, the power of superior sense — for 
common thieves are fools beside these men — and the 
power of a perfect mastery of their character, the gar- 
rison of Rats’ Castle and the adjacent Fortresses make 
but a skulking show indeed when reviewed by Inspector 
Field. 

Saint Giles’s clock says it will be midnight in half an 
hour, and Inspector Field says we must hurry to the 
Old Mint in the Borough. The cab-driver is low-spir- 
ited, and has a solemn sense of his responsibility. Now, 
what’s your fare, my lad ? — O you know, Inspector 
Field, what’s the good of asking me ! 

Say, Parker, strapped and great-coated, and waiting 
in dim Borough doorway by appointment, to replace the 
trusty Rogers whom we left deep in Saint Giles’s, are 
you ready ? Ready, Inspector Field, and at a motion 
of my wrist behold my flaming eye. 

This narrow street, sir, is the chief part of the Old 
Mint, full of low lodging-houses, as you see ty the trans* 


228 


ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 


parent canvas-lamps and blinds, announcing beds for 
travellers ! But it is greatly changed, friend Field, from 
my former knowledge of it ; it is infinitely quieter and 
more subdued than when I was here last, some seven 
years ago ? 0 yes ! Inspector Haynes, a first-rate man, 

is on this station now and plays the Devil with them ! 

Well, my lads ! How are you to-night, my bids ! 
Playing cards here, eh ? Who wins ? — Why, Mr 
Field, I, the sulky gentleman with the damp flat side- 
curls, rubbing my bleared eye with the end of my neck 
kerchief which is like a dirty eel-skin, am losing just a + 
present, but I suppose I must take my pipe out of my 
mouth, and be submissive to you — I hope I see you 
well, Mr. Field? — Aye, all right, my lad. Deputy, 
who have you got up-stairs ? Be pleased to show the 
rooms ! 

Why Deputy, Inspector Field can’t say. He only 
knows that the man who takes care of the beds and 
lodgers is always called so. Steady, O Deputy, with the 
flaring candle in the blacking bottle, for this is a slushy 
back-yard, and the wooden staircase outside the house 
creaks and has holes in it. 

Again, in these confined intolerable rooms, burrowed 
out like the holes of rats or the nests of insect-vermin, 
but fuller of intolerable smells, are crowds of sleepers, 
each on his foul truckle-bed coiled up beneath a rug 
Halloa here ! Come ! Let us see you ! Show your 
face ! Pilot Parker goes from bed to bed and turns 
their slumbering heads towards us, as a salesman might 
turn sheep. Some wake up with an execration and a 
threat. — What ! who spoke ? O ! If it’s the accursed 
glaring eye that fixes me, go where I will, I am help- 
less. Here ! I sit up to be looked at. Is it me you 


ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 


229 


want ? — Not you, lie down again ! — and I lie down* 
with a woful growl. 

Wherever the turning lane of light becomes station- 
ary for a moment, some sleeper appears at the end of 
it, submits himself to be scrutinized, and fades away 
into the darkness. 

There should be strange dreams here, Deputy. They 
sleep sound enough, says Deputy, taking the candle out 
of the blacking bottle, snuffing it with his fingers, throw- 
ing the snuff into the bottle, and corking it up v ith the 
candle ; that’s all I know. What is the inscription, 
Deputy, on all the discolored sheets ? A precaution 
against loss of linen. Deputy turns down the rug of 
an unoccupied bed and discloses it. Stop Thief ! 

To lie at night, wrapped in the legend of my slinking 
life ; to take the cry that pursues me, waking, to my 
breast in sleep ; to have it staring at me, and clamor- 
ing for me, as soon as consciousness returns ; to have 
it for my first-foot on New-Year’s day, my Valentine, 
my Birthday salute, my Christmas greeting, my part- 
ing with the old year. Stop Thief ! 

And to know that I must be stopped, come what 
will. To know that I am no match for this individual 
energy and keenness, or this organized and steady sys- 
tem ! Come across the street, here, and, entering by 
a little shop, and yard, examine these intricate passages 
and doors, contrived for escape, flapping and counter- 
flapping, like the lids of the conjuror’s boxes. But 
what avail they ? Who gets in by a nod, and shows 
their secret working to us ? Inspector Field. 

Don’t forget the old Farm House, Parker ! Parker 
is not the man to forget it. We are going there, now. 
A is the old Manor-House of these parts, and stood in 


230 


ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 


the country once. Then, perhaps, there was something 
which was not the beastly street, to see from the shat* 
tered low fronts of the overhanging wooden houses we 
are passing under — shut up now, pasted over with bills 
about the literature and drama of the Mint, and mould 
ering away. This long paved yard was a paddock or ? 
garden once, or a court in front of the Farm House. 
Perchance, with a dove-cot in the centre, and fowls peck- 
ing about — with fair elm-trees, t’nen, where discolored 
chimney-stacks and gables are now — noisy, then, with 
rooks which have yielded to a different sort of rookery. 
It’s likelier than not, Inspector Field thinks, as we turn 
into the common kitchen, which is in the yard, and many 
paces from the house. 

Well my lads and lasses, how are you all ! Where’s 
Blackey, who has stood near London Bridge these five- 
and-twenty years, with a painted skin to represent dis- 
ease ? — Here he is, Mr. Field ! — How are you, Black- 
ey ? — Jolly, sa ! — Not playing the fiddle to-night, 
Blackey ? — Not a night, sa ! — A sharp, smiling youth, 
the wit of the kitchen, interposes. He a’n’t musical to- 
night, sir. I’ve been giving him a moral lecture ; I’ve 
been a-talking to him about his latter end, you see. A 
good many of these are my pupils, sir. This here young 
man (smoothing down the hair of one near him, reading 
a Sunday paper) is a pupil of mine. I’m a-teaclung of 
him to read, sir. He’s a promising cove, sir. He’s a 
smith, he is, and gets his living by the sweat of the 
brow, sir. So do I, myself, sir. This young woman is 
my sister, Mr. Field. She's getting on very well too. 
I’ve a deal of trouble with ’em, sir, but I’m richly re- 
warded, now I see ’em all a-doing so well, and growing 
’ip so creditable. That’s a great comfort, that is, a’n’t it, 


ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 


231 


• 

Bir ? — In the midst of the kitchen (the whole kitchen is 
in ecstasies with this impromptu “ chaff ”) sits a young, 
modest, gentle-looking creature, with a beautiful child in 
her lap. She seems to belong to the company, but is so 
strangely unlike it. She has such a pretty, quiet face 
and voice, and is so proud to hear the child admired — 
thinks you would hardly believe that he is only nine 
months old ! Is she as bad as the rest, I wonder ? In- 
spectorial experience does not engender a belief contra- 
riwise, but prompts the answer, Not a ha’porth of differ- 
ence ! 

There is a piano going in the old Farm House as we 
approach. It stops. Landlady appears. Has no ob- 
jections, Mr. Field, to gentlemen being brought, but 
wishes it were at earlier hours, the lodgers complaining 
of ill-conwenience. Inspector Field is polite and sooth- 
ing — knows his woman and the sex. Deputy (a girl 
in this case) shows the way up a heavy broad old stair- 
case, kept very clean, into clean rooms where many 
sleepers are, and where painted panels of an older time 
look strangely on the truckle beds. The sight of white- 
wash and the smell of soap — two things we seem by 
this time to have parted from in infancy — make the 
old Farm House a phenomenon, and connect themselves 
with the so curiously misplaced picture of the pretty 
mother and child long after we have left it, — long after 
we have left, besides, the neighboring nook with some- 
thing of a rustic flavor in it yet, where once, beneath a 
low wooden colonnade still standing as of yore, the em- 
inent Jack Sheppard condescended to regale himself, 
and where, now, two old bachelor brothers in broad 
hats (who are whispered in the Mint to have made a 
compact long ago that if either should ever marry, he 


232 


ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 


must forfeit his share of the joint property) still keep a 
sequestered tavern, and sit o’ nights smoking pipes in 
the bar, among ancient bottles and glasses, as our eyes 
behold them. 

How goes the night now ? Saint George of South- 
wark answers with twelve blows upon his bell. Parker, 
good night, for Williams is already waiting over in the 
region of Batcliffe Highway, to show the houses where 
the sailors dance. 

I should like to know where Inspector Field was 
born. In Batcliffe Highway, I would have answered 
with confidence, but for his being equally at home 
wherever we go. He does not trouble his head as I 
do, about the river at night. He does not care for its 
creeping, black and silent, on our right there, rushing 
through sluice gates, lapping at piles and posts and iron 
rings, hiding strange things in its mud, running away 
with suicides and accidentally drowned bodies faster 
than midnight funeral should, and acquiring such vari- 
ous experience between its cradle and its grave. It has 
no mystery for him. Is there not the Thames Police ! 

Accordingly, Williams lead the way. We are a little- 
late, for some of the houses are already closing. No 
matter. You show us plenty. All the landlords know 
Inspector Field. All pass him, freely and good-humor- 
edly, wheresoever he wants to go. So thoroughly are all 
these houses open to him and our local guide, that, grant- 
ing that sailors must be entertained in their own way 
— as I suppose they must, and have a right to be — I 
hardly know how such places could be better regulated. 
Not that I call the company very select, or the dancing 
rery graceful — even so graceful as that of the Ger- 
man Sugar Bakers, whose assembly, by the Minories, 


ON Dim WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 


233 


we stopped to visit — but there is watchful mainte- 
nance of order in every house, and swift expulsion where 
need is. Even in the midst of drunkenness, both of 
the lethargic kind and the lively, there is sharp land- 
lord supervision, and pockets are in less peril than out 
of doors. These houses show, singularly, how much of 
the picturesque and romantic there truly is in the sailor, 
requiring to be especially addressed. All the songs 
(sung in a hailstorm of halfpence, which are pitched at 
the singer without the least tenderness for the time or 
tune — mostly from great rolls of copper carried for 
the purpose — and which he occasionally dodges like 
shot as they fly near his head) are of the sentimental 
sea sort. All the rooms are decorated with nautical 
subjects. Wrecks, engagements, ships on fire, ships 
passing lighthouses on iron-bound coasts, ships blowing 
up, ships going down, ships running ashore, men lying 
out upon the main yard in a gale of wind, sailors and 
ships in every variety of peril, constitute the illustra- 
tions of fact. Nothing can be done in the fanciful way, 
without a thumping boy upon a scaly dolphin. 

How goes the night now? Past one. Black and 
Green are waiting in Whitechapel to unveil the myste- 
ries of Wentworth Street. Williams, the best of friends 
must part. Adieu ! 

Are not Black and Green ready at the appointed 
place ? O yes ! They glide out of shadow as we stop. 
Imperturbable Black opens the cab-door ; Imperturba- 
ble Green takes a mental note to the driver. Both 
Green and Black then open, each his flaming eye, and 
marshal us the way that we are going. 

The lodging-house we want, is hidden in a maze of 
streets and courts. It is fast shut. We knock at the 


234 


ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 


door, and stand hushed looking up for a light at one 
or other of the begrimed old lattice windows in its ugly 
front, when another constable comes up — supposes that 
we want “ to see the school.” Detective Sergeant mean- 
while has got over a rail, opened a gate, dropped down 
an area, overcome some other little obstacles, and tapped 
at a window. Now returns. The landlord will send a 
deputy immediately. 

Deputy is heard to stumble out of bed. Deputy lights 
a candle, draws back a bolt or two, and appears at the 
door. Deputy is a shivering shirt and trousers by no 
means clean, a yawning face, a shock head much con- 
fused externally and internally. We want to look for 
some one. You may go up with the light, and take ’em 
all, if you like, says Deputy, resigning it, and sitting down 
upon a bench in the kitchen with his ten fingers sleepily 
twisting in his hair. 

Halloa here ! Now then ! Show yourselves. That’ll 
do. It’s not you. Don’t disturb yourself any more ! 
So on, through a labyrinth of airless rooms, each man 
responding, like a wild beast, to the keeper who has 
tamed him, and who goes into his cage. What, you 
haven’t found him, then ? says Deputy, when we came 
down. A woman mysteriously sitting up all night in the 
dark by the smouldering ashes of the kitchen fire, says 
it’s only tramps and cadgers here : it’s gonophs over the 
way. A man, mysteriously walking about the kitchen 
all night in the dark, bids her hold her tongue. We 
come out. Deputy fastens the door and goes to bed 
again. 

o 

Black and Green, you know Bark, lodging-house 
keeper and receiver of stolen goods ? — O yes, Inspec- 
tor Field. — G~ to Bark’s next. 


ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 235 

Bark sleeps in an inner wooden hutch, near his street- 
door. As we parley on the step with Bark’s Deputy, 
Bark growls in his bed. We enter, and Bark flies out 
of bed. Bark is a red villain and a wrathful, with a 
sanguine throat that looks very much as if it were ex 
pressly made for hanging, as he stretches it out, in pal 
defiance, over the half-door of his hutch. Bark’s parts 
of speech are of an awful sort — principally adjectives. 
I won’t, says Bark, have no adjective police and adjec- 
tive strangers in my adjective premises ! I won’t, by 
adjective and substantive ! Give me my trousers, and 
I’ll send the whole adjective police to adjective and sub- 
stantive ! Give me, says Bark, my adjective trousers ! 
I’ll put an adjective knife in the whole bileing of ’em. 
I’ll punch their adjective heads. I’ll rip up their adjec- 
tive substantives. Give me my adjective trousers ! says 
Bark, and I’ll spile the bileing of ’em ! 

Now, Bark, what’s the use of this ? Here’s Black and 
Green, Detective Sergeant, and Inspector Field. You 
know we will come in. — I know you won’t ! says Bark. 
Somebody give me my adjective trousers ! Bark’s trou- 
sers seem difficult to find. He calls for them, as Hercules 
might for his club. Give me my adjective trousers ! says 
Bark, and I’ll spile the bileing of ’em ! 

Inspector Field holds that it’s all one whether Bark 
likes the visit or don’t like it. He, Inspector Field, is 
an Inspector of the Detective Police, Detective Sergeant 
is Detective Sergeant, Black and Green are constables 
in uniform. Don’t you be a fool, Bark, or you know it 
will be the worse for you. — I don’t care, says Bark. 
Give me my adjective trousers ! 

At two o’clock in the morning, we descend into Bark’s 
low kitchen, leaving Bark to foam at the mouth above, 


236 ON DUTY WITH INSPECTOR FIELD. 

and Imperturbable Black and Green to look at him. 
Bark’s kitchen is crammed full of thieves, holding a 
conversazione there by lamp-light. It is by far the most 
dangerous assembly we have seen yet. Stimulated by 
the ravings of Bark, above, their looks are sullen, but 
not a man speaks. We ascend again. Bark has got his 
trousers, and is in a state of madness in the passage with 
his back against a door that shuts off the upper stair- 
case. We observe, in other respects, a ferocious indi- 
viduality in Bark. Instead of “ Stop Thief ! ” on his 
linen, he prints “ Stolen from Bark’s ! ” 

Now Bark, we are going up-stairs ! — No, you a’n’t ! 
— You refuse admission to the Police, do you, Bark? — 
Yes, I do ! I refuse it to all the adjective police and to 
all the adjective substantives. If the adjective coves in 
the kitchen was men, they’d come up now, and do for 
you ! Shut me that there door ! says Bark, and sud- 
denly we are enclosed in the passage. They’d come up 
and do for you ! cries Bark, and waits. Not a sound in 
the kitchen ! They’d come up and do for you ! cries Bark 
again, and waits. Not a sound in the kitchen ! We are 
shut up, half a dozen of us, in Bark’s house in the inner- 
most recesses of the worst part of London, in the dead 
of the night — the house is crammed with notorious rob- 
bers and ruffians — and not a man stirs. No, Bark. 
They know the weight of the law, and they know Inspec- 
tor Field and Co. too well. 

We leave Bully Bark to subside at leisure out of his 
passion and his trousers, and, I dare say, to be incon- 
veniently reminded of this little brush before long. 
Black and Green do ordinary duty here, and look 
serious. 

As to White, who waits on ITolborn Hill to show the 


\ 


ON DUTY WJLTH INSPECTOR FIELD. 237 

courts tliat are eaten out of Rotten Gray’s Inn Lane ; 
where other lodging-houses are, and where (in one blind 
alley) the Thieves’ Kitchen and Seminary for the teacl 
ing of the art to children, is, the night has so w r orn awa} 
being now 

almost at odds with morning, which is which, 

that they are quiet, and no light shines through the 
chinks in the shutters. As undistinctive Death will 
come here, one day, sleep comes now. The wicked 
cease from troubling sometimes, even in this life 


DOWN WITH THE TIDE. 


♦ 

A very dark night it was, and bitter cold ; the easl 
wind blowing bleak, and bringing with it stinging par- 
ticles from marsh, and moor, and fen — from the Great 
Desert and Old Egypt, may be. Some of the com- 
ponent parts of the sharp-edged vapor that came flying 
up the Thames at London might be mummy-dust, dry 
atoms from the Temple at Jerusalem, camels’ footprints, 
crocodiles’ hatching-places, loosened grains of expression 
from the visages of blunt-nosed sphinxes, waifs and 
strays from caravans of turbaned merchants, vegetation 
from jungles, frozen snow from the Himalayas. O ! It 
was very, very dark upon the Thames, and it was bitter, 
bitter cold. 

“ And yet,” said the voice within the great pea-coat at 
my side, “you’ll have seen a good many rivers too, I 
dare say ? ” 

“ Truly,” said I, “ when I come to think of it, not a 
few. From the Niagara, downward to the mountain 
rivers of Italy, which are like the national spirit — very 
tame, or chafing suddenly and bursting bounds, only to 
dwindle away again. The Moselle, and the Rhine, and 
the Rhone ; and the Seine, and the Saone ; and the St. 
Lawrence, Mississippi, and Ohio ; and the Tiber, the Po, 
and the Arno ; and the — ” 


DOWN WITH THE TIDE. 


239 

Peacoat coughing, as if he had had enough of that, I 
said no more. I could have carried the catalogue on 
to a teasing length, though, if I had been in the cruel 
mind. 

“ And after all,” said he, “ this looks so dismal ? ” 

“ So awful,” I returned, “ at night. The Seine a 
Paris is very gloomy too, at such a time, and is probably 
the scene of far more crime and greater wickedness ; but 
this river looks so broad and vast, so murky and silent, 
seems such an image of death in the midst of the great 
city’s life, that — ” 

That Peacoat coughed again. He could not stand my 
holding forth. 

We were in a four-oared Thames Police Galley, lying 
on our oars in the deep shadow of Southwark Bridge — 
under the corner arch on the Surrey side — having come 
down with the tide from Vauxhall. We were fain to hold 
on pretty tight, though close in shore, for the river was 
swollen and the tide running down very strong. We 
were watching certain water-rats of human growth, and 
lay in the deep shade as quiet as mice ; our light hidden 
and our scraps of conversation carried on in whispers. 
Above us, the massive iron girders of the arch were 
faintly visible, and below us its ponderous shadow seemed 
to sink down to the bottom of the stream. 

We had been lying here some half an hour. With 
our backs to the wind, it is true ; but the wind being in 
a determined temper blew straight through us, and would 
not take the trouble to go round. I would have boarded 
a fireship to get into action, and mildly suggested as much 
to my friend Pea. 

“ No doubt,” says he as patiently as possible ; “ but 
shore-going tactics wouldn’t do with us. Biver thieves 


240 


DOWN WITH THE TIDE. 


can always get rid of stolen property in a moment by 
dropping it overboard. We want to take them with the 
property, so we lurk about and come out upon ’em sharp. 
If they see us or hear us, over it goes.” 

Pea’s wisdom being indisputable, there was nothing for 
t but to sit there and be blown through, for another half 
lour. The water-rats thinking it wise to abscond at the 
end of that time without commission of felony, we shot 
out, disappointed, with the tide. 

“ Grim they look, don’t they ? ” said Pea, seeing me 
glance over my shoulder at the lights upon the bridge, 
and downward at their long crooked reflections in the 
river. 

“ Very,” said I, “ and make one think with a shudder 
of Suicides. What a night for a dreadful leap from that 
parapet ! ” 

“ Ay, but Waterloo’s the favorite bridge for making 
holes in the water from,” returned Pea. u By the by — 
avast pulling lads ! — would you like to speak to Water- 
loo on the subject ? ” 

My face confessing a surprised desire to have some 
friendly conversation with Waterloo Bridge, and my 
friend Pea being the most obliging of men, we put about, 
pulled out of the force of the stream, and in place of 
going at great speed with the tide, began to strive against 
it, close in shore again. Every color but black seemed 
to have departed from the world. The air was black, 
the water was black, the barges and hulks were black, 
the piles were black, the buildings were black, the shad- 
ows were only a deeper shade of black upon a black 
ground. Here and there, a coal fire in an iron cresset 
blazed upon a wharf ; but, one knew that it too had been 
black a little while ago, and would be black again soon. 


DOWN WITH THE TIDE. 


241 


Uncomfortable rushes of water suggestive of gurgling 
and drowning, ghostly rattlings of iron chains, dismal 
clankings of discordant engines, formed the music that 
accompanied the dip of our oars and their rattling in the 
rullocks. Even the noises had a black sound to me — as 
the trumpet sounded red to the blind man. 

Our dexterous boat’s crew made nothing of the tide, 
and pulled us gallantly up to Waterloo Bridge. Here 
Pea and I disembarked, passed under the black stone 
archway, and climbed the steep stone steps. Within a 
few feet of their summit, Pea presented me to Waterloo 
(or an eminent toll-taker representing that structure), 
muffled up to the eyes in a thick shawl, and amply great- 
coated and fur-capped. 

Waterloo received us with cordiality, and observed of 
the night that it was “ a Searcher/’ He had been origi- 
nally called the Strand Bridge, he informed us, but had 
received his present name at the suggestion of the pro- 
prietors, when Parliament had resolved to vote three 
hundred thousand pound for the erection of a monument 
in honor of the victory. Parliament took the hint 
(said Waterloo, with the least flavor of misanthropy) 
and saved the money. Of course the late Duke of 
Wellington was the first passenger, and of course he paid 
his penny, and of course a noble lord preserved it ever 
more. The treadle and index at the toll-house (a most 
ingenious contrivance for rendering fraud impossible) 
were invented by Mr. Lethbridge, then property-man at 
Drury Lane Theatre. 

Was it suicide, we wanted to know about? said 
Waterloo. Ha! Well, he had seen a good deal of that 
work, he did assure us. He had prevented some. Why, 
Dne day a woman, poorisli looking, came in between the 

16 


VOL. II. 


2 42 


DOWN WITH THE TIDE. 


hatch, slapped down a penny, and wanted to go on with* 
out the change ! Waterloo suspected this, and says to 
his mate, “ give aii eye to the gate,” and bolted after her. 
She had got to the third seat between the piers, and was 
on the parapet just a-going over, when he caught hei 
and gave her in charge. At the police office next morn 
ing, she said it was along of trouble and a bad hus 
band. 

“ Likely enough,” observed Waterloo to Pea and my- 
self, as he adjusted his chin in his shawl. “ There’s a 
deal of trouble about, you see — and bad husbands 
too ! ” 

Another time, a young woman at twelve o’clock in the 
open day, got through, darted along ; and, before Water- 
loo could come near her, jumped upon the parapet, and 
shot herself over sideways. Alarm given, watermen put 
off, lucky escape. — Clothes buoyed her up. 

“ This is where it is,” said Waterloo. “ If people 
jump off straight forwards from the middle of the para- 
pet of the bays of the bridge, they are seldom killed by 
drowning, but are smashed, poor things ; that’s what they 
are ; they dash themselves upon the buttress of the 
bridge. But, you jump off,” said Waterloo to me, put- 
ting his forefinger in the button-hole of my great-coat ; 
“ you jump off from the side of the bay, and you’ll 
tumble, true, into the stream under the arch. What 
you have got to do, is to mind how you jump in 
There was poor Tom Steele from Dublin. Didn’t dive 
Bless you, didn’t dive at all ! Fell down so flat into 
the water, that he broke his breast-bone, and lived two 
days ! ” 

I asked Waterloo if there were a favorite side of his 
bridge for this dreadful purpose ? He reflected, and 


\ 


DOWN WITH THE TIDE. 


243 


thought yes, there was. He should say the Surrey 
side. 

Three decent-looking men went through one day, 
soberly and quietly, and w^ent on abreast for about a 
dozen yards : when the middle one, he sung out, all of a 
sudden, “ Here goes, Jack ! ” and was over in a minute. 

Body found? Well. Waterloo didn’t rightly recollect 
about that. They were compositors, they were. 

He considered it astonishing how quick people were ! 
Why, there was a cab came up one Boxing-night, with a 
young woman in it, who looked, according to Waterloo’s 
opinion of her, a little the worse for liquor ; very hand- 
some she was too — very handsome. She stopped the 
cab at the gate, and said she’d pay the cabman then : 
which she did, though there was a little hankering about 
the fare, because at first she didn’t seem quite to know 
where she wanted to be drove to. However she paid the 
man, and the toll too, and looking Waterloo in the face 
(he thought she knew him, don’t you see !) said, “ I’ll 
finish it somehow ! ” Well, the cab went off, leaving 
Waterloo a little doubtful in his mind, and while it was 
going on at full speed the young woman jumped out, 
never fell, hardly staggered, ran along the bridge pave- 
ment a little way, passing several people, and jumped 
over from the second opening. At the inquest it was 
giv’ in evidence that she had been quarrelling at the 
Hero of Waterloo, and it was brought in jealousy. (One 
of the results of Waterloo’s experience was, that there 
was a deal of jealousy about.) 

“ Do we ever get madmen ? ” said Waterloo, in answer 
to an inquiry of mine. “Well, we do get madmen. 
Yes, we have had one or two ; escaped from ’Sylums, I 
suppose. One hadn’t a halfpenny ; and because I 


244 


DOWN WITH THE TIDE. 


wouldn’t let him through, he went back a little way, 
stooped down, took a run, and butted at the hatch like a 
ram. He smashed his hat rarely, but his head didn’t 
seem no worse — in my opinion on account of his being 
wrong in it afore. Sometimes people haven’t got a half- 
penny. If they are really tired and poor we give ’em 
one and let ’em through. Other people will leave things 
— pocket-handkerchiefs mostly. I have taken cravats 
and gloves, pocket-knives, toothpicks, studs, shirt-pins, 
rings (generally from young gents, early in the morning), 
but handkerchiefs is the general thing.” 

“ Regular customers ? ” said Waterloo. “ Lord, yes ! 
We have regular customers. One, such a worn-out used- 
up old file as you can scarcely picter, comes from the 
Surrey side as regular as ten o’clock at night comes ; and 
goes over, 1 think, to some flash house on the Middlesex 
side. He comes back, he does, as reg’lar as the clock 
strikes three in the morning, and then can hardly drag 
one of his old legs after the other. He always turns down 
the water-stairs, comes up again, and then goes on down 
the Waterloo Road. He always does the same thing, and 
never varies a minute. Does it every night — even 
Sundays.” 

I asked Waterloo if he had given his mind to the pos- 
sibility of this particular customer going down the water- 
stairs at three o’clock some morning, and never coming 
up again ? He didn’t think that of him, he replied. In 
fact, it was Waterloo’s opinion, founded on his obser- 
vation of that file, that he know’d a trick worth two 
of it. 

“ There’s another queer old customer,” said Waterloo, 
“ comes over, as punctual as the almanack, at eleven o’- 
clock on the sixth of January, at eleven o’clock on the 


DOWN WITH THE TIDE. 


245 


fifth of April, at eleven o’clock on the sixth of July, 
eleven o’clock on the tenth of October. Drives a shagg} 
little, rough pony, in a sort of a rattle-trap arm-chair sort 
of a thing. White hair he has, and white whiskers, and 
muffles himself up with all manner of shawls. He comes 
back again the same afternoon, and we never see more of 
him for three months. He is a captain in the navy — 
retired — wery old — wery odd — and served with Lord 
Nelson. He is particular about drawing his pension at 
Somerset House afore the clock strikes twelve every 
quarter. I have heerd say that he thinks it wouldn’t be 
according to the Act of Parliament, if he didn’t draw it 
afore twelve.” 

Having related these anecdotes in a natural manner, 
which was the best warranty in the world for their gen- 
uine nature, our friend Waterloo was sinking deep into 
his shawl again, as having exhausted his communicative 
powers and taken in enough east wind, when my other 
friend Pea in a moment brought him to the surface by 
asking whether he had not been occasionally the subject 
of assault and battery in the execution of his duty ? 
Waterloo recovering his spirits, instantly dashed into a 
new branch of his subject. We learnt how “ both these 
teeth ” — here he pointed to the places where two front 
teeth were not — were knocked out by an ugly customer 
who one night made a dash at him (Waterloo) while his 
(the ugly customer’s) pal and coadjutor made a dash at 
the toll-taking apron where the money-pockets were ; 
how Waterloo, letting the teeth go (to Blazes, he ob- 
served indefinitely) grappled with the apron-seizer, per- 
mitting the ugly one to run away ; and how he saved the 
bank, and captured his man, and consigned him to fine 
^ind imprisonment. Also how, on another night, “ a Cove ” 


246 


DOWN WITH THE TIDE. 


laid hold of Waterloo, then presiding at the horse gate of 
his bridge, and threw him unceremoniously over his knee, 
having first cut his head open with his whip. How 
Waterloo “ got right,” and started after the Cove all 
down the Waterloo Road, through Stamford Street, and 
round to the foot of Rlackfriars Bridge, where the Cove 
“ cut into ” a public house. How Waterloo cut in too ; 
but how an aider and abettor of the Cove’s, who hap- 
pened to be taking a promiscuous drain at the bar, stop- 
ped Waterloo ; and the Cove cut out again, ran across 
the road down Holland Street, and where not, and into a 
beer-shop. How Waterloo breaking away from his de- 
tainer was close upon the Cove’s heels, attended by no 
end of people who, seeing him running with the blood 
streaming down his face, thought something worse was 
“up,” and roared Fire! and Murder! on the hopeful 
chance of the matter in hand being one or both. How 
the Cove was ignominiously taken, in a shed where he 
had run to hide, and how at the Police Court they at 
first wanted to make a sessions job of it ; but eventually 
Waterloo was allowed to be “ spoke to,” and the Cove 
made it square with Waterloo by paying his doctor’s bill 
(W. was laid up for a week) and giving him “ Three, 
ten.” Likewise we learnt what we had faintly suspected 
before, that your sporting amateur on the Derby day, 
albeit a captain, can be — “ if he be,” as Captain Bobadil 
observes, “ so generously minded ” — anything but a man 
of honor and a gentleman ; not sufficiently gratifying his 
nice sense of humor by the witty scattering of flour and 
rotten eggs on obtuse civilians, but requiring the further 
excitement of “ bilking the toll,” and “ pitching into ” 
Waterloo, and “cutting him about the head with his 
whip ; ” finally being, when called upon to answer for the 


DOWN WITH THE TIDE. 


247 


assault, what Waterloo described as “ Minus,” or, as I 
humbly conceived it, not to be found. Likewise did 
Waterloo inform us, in reply to my inquiries, admiringly 
and deferentially preferred through my friend Pea, that 
the takings at the Bridge had more than doubled in 
amount, since the reduction of the toll one half. And 
being asked if the aforesaid takings included much bad 
money, Waterloo responded, with a look far deeper than 
the deepest part of the river, he should think not ! — and 
so retired into his shawl for the rest of the night. 

Then did Pea and I once more embark in our four- 
oared galley, and glide swiftly down the river with the 
tide. And while the shrewd East rasped and notched us, 
as with jagged razors, did my friend Pea impart to me 
confidences of interest relating to the Thames Police ; we 
betweenwhiles finding “ duty boats ” hanging in dark cor- 
ners under banks, like weeds — our own was a “ super- 
vision boat ” — and they, as they reported u all right ! ” 
flashing their hidden light on us, and we flashing ours 
on them. These duty boats had one sitter in each : an 
Inspector : and were rowed “ Pan-dan,” which — for the 
information of those who never graduated, as I was once 
proud to do, under a fireman-waterman and winner of 
Kean’s Prize Wherry : who, in the course of his tuition, 
took hundreds of gallons of rum and egg (at my expense) 
at the various houses of note above and below bridge 
not by any means because he liked it, but to cure a weak- 
ness in his liver, for which the faculty had particularly 
recommended it — may be explained as rowed by three 
men, two pulling an oar each, and one a pair of sculls. 

Thus, floating down our black highway, sullenly frown- 
ed upon by the knitted brows of Blackfriars, Southwark, 
and London, each in his lowering turn, I was shown by 


243 


DOWN WITH THE TIDE. 


my friend Pea that there are, in the Thames Police Force, 
whose district extends from Battersea to Barking Creek, 
ninety-eight men, eight duty boats, and two supervision 
boats ; and that these go about so silently, and lie in wait 
in such dark places, and so seem to be nowhere, and so 
may be anywhere, that they have gradually become a 
police of prevention, keeping the river almost clear of 
any great crimes, even while the increased vigilance on 
shore has made it much harder than of yore to live by 
“ thieving ” in the streets. And as to the various kinds 
of water thieves, said my friend Pea, there were the 
Tier-rangers, who silently dropped alongside the tiers of 
shipping in the Pool, by night, and who, going to the 
companion-head, listened for two snores — snore number 
one, the skipper’s ; snore number two, the mate’s — mates 
and skippers always snoring great guns, and being dead 
sure to be hard at it if they had turned in and were asleep 
Hearing the double fire, down went the Bangers into the 
skippers’ cabins : groped for the skippers’ inexpressibles, 
which it was the custom of those gentlemen to shake off, 
watch, money, braces, boots, and all together, on the 
floor ; and therewith made off as silently as might be. 
Then there were the Lumpers, or laborers employed to 
unload vessels. They wore loose canvas jackets with a 
broad hem in the bottom, turned inside, so as to form a 
large circular pocket in which they could conceal, like 
clowns in pantomimes, packages of surprising sizes. A 
great deal of property was stolen in this manner (Pea 
confided to me) from steamers ; first, because steamers 
carry a larger number of small packages than other ships ; 
next, because of the extreme rapidity with which they 
are obliged to be unladen for their return voyages. The 
Lumpers dispose of their booty easily to marine store 


DOWN WITH THE TIDE. 


249 


dealers, and the only remedy to be suggested is that 
marine store shops should be licensed, and thus brought 
under the eye of the police as rigidly as public-houses 
Lumpers also smuggle goods ashore for the crews of ves- 
sels. The smuggling of tobacco is so considerable, that 
it is well worth the while of the sellers of smuggled to- 
bacco to use hydraulic presses, to squeeze a single pound 
into a package small enough to be contained in an ordi- 
nary pocket. Next, said my friend Pea, there were the 
Truckers — less thieves than smugglers, whose business 
it was to land more considerable parcels of goods than the 
Lumpers could manage. They sometimes sold articles 
of grocery, and so forth, to the crews, in order to cloak 
their real calling, and get aboard without suspicion. 
Many of them had boats of their own, and made money. 
Besides these, there were the Dredgermen, who, under 
pretence of dredging up coals and such like from the 
bottom of the river, hung about barges and other un- 
decked craft, and when they saw an opportunity, threw 
any property they could lay their hands on overboard ; 
in order slyly to dredge it up when the vessel was gone. 
Sometimes, they dexterously used their dredges to whip 
away anything that might lie within reach. Some of 
them were mighty neat at this, and the accomplishment 
was called dry dredging. Then, there was a vast deal 
of property, such as copper nails, sheathing, hardwood, 
&c., habitually brought away by shipwrights and other 
workmen from their employers’ yards, and disposed of to 
marine store dealers, many of whom escaped detection 
through hard swearing, and their extraordinary artful 
ways of accounting for the possession of stolen property. 
Likewise, there were special-pleading practitioners, for 
whom barges “ drifted away of their own selves ” — they 


250 


DOWN WITH THE TIDE. 


having no hand in it, except first cutting them loose, and 
afterwards plundering them — innocents, meaning no 
harm, who had the misfortune to observe those found- 
lings wandering about the Thames. 

We were now going in and out, with little noise and 
great nicety, among the tiers of shipping, whose many 
hulls, lying close together, rose out of the water like black 
streets. Here and there, a Scotch, an Irish, or a foreign 
steamer, getting up her steam as the tide made, looked, 
with her great chimney and high sides, like a quiet fac- 
tory among the common buildings. Now, the streets 
opened into clearer spaces, now contracted into alleys ; 
but the tiers were so like houses, in the dark, that I 
could almost have believed myself in the narrower by- 
ways of Venice. Everything was wonderfully still ; for, 
it wanted full three hours of flood, and nothing seemed 
awake but a dog here and there. 

So we took no Tier-rangers captive, nor any Lumpers, 
nor Truckers, nor Dredgermen, nor other evil-disposed 
person or persons ; but went ashore at Wapping, where 
the old Thames Police office is now a station-house, and 
where the old Court, with its cabin windows looking on 
the river, is a quaint charge room : with nothing worse 
in it usually than a stuffed cat in a glass case, and a por- 
trait, pleasant to behold, of a rare old Thames Police 
officer, Mr. Superintendent Evans, now succeeded by his 
son. We looked over the charge books, admirably kept, 
and found the prevention so good, that there were not 
five hundred entries (including drunken and disorderly) 
in a whole year. Then, we looked into the store-room ; 
where there was an oakum smell, and a nautical season- 
ing of dreadnought clothing, rope yarn, boat hooks, sculls 
and oars, spare stretchers, rudders, pistols, cutlasses, and 


DOWN WITH THE TIDE. 


251 


the like. Then, into the cell, aired high up in the 
wooden wall through an opening like a kitchen plate- 
rack : wherein there was a drunken man, not at all warm, 
and very wishful to know if it were morning yet. Then, 
into a better sort of watch and ward room, where there 
was a squadron of stone bottles drawn up, ready to be 
filled with hot water and applied to any unfortunate 
creature who might be brought in apparently drowned. 
Finally, we shook hands with our worthy friend Pea, 
and ran all the way to Tower Hill, under strong Police 
suspicion occasionally, before we got warm. 


A WALK IN A WORKHOUSE. 


♦ 

On a certain Sunday, I formed one of the congrega- 
tion assembled in the chapel of a large metropolitan 
Workhouse. With the exception of the clergyman and 
clerk, and a very few officials, there were none but pau- 
pers present. The children sat in the galleries ; the 
women in the body of the chapel, and in one of the side 
aisles ; the men in the remaining aisle. The service was 
decorously performed, though the sermon might have 
been much better adapted to the comprehension and to 
the circumstances of the hearers. The usual supplica- 
tions were offered, with more than the usual significancy 
in such a place, for the fatherless children and widows, 
for all sick persons and young children, for all that were 
desolate and oppressed, for the comforting and helping 
of the weak-hearted, for the raising-up of them that had 
fallen ; for all that were in danger, necessity, and tribu- 
lation. The prayers of the congregation were desired 
u for several persons in the various wards dangerously 
ill ; ” and others who were recovering returned their 
thanks to Heaven. 

Among this congregation, were some evil -looking 
young women, and beetle-browed young men ; but not 
many — perhaps that kind of characters kept away. 
Generally, the faces (those of the children excepted) 


A WALK IN A WAREHOUSE. 


253 


were depressed and subdued, and wanted color. Aged 
people were there, in every variety. Mumbling, blear- 
eyed, spectacled, stupid, deaf, lame ; vacantly winking 
in the gleams of sun that now and then crept in through 
the open doors, from the paved yard ; shading their 
listening ears, or blinking eyes with their withered 
hands ; poring over their books, leering at nothing, 
going to sleep, crouching and drooping in corners. There 
were weird old women, all skeleton within, all bonnet 
and cloak without, continually wiping their eyes with 
dirty dusters of pocket handkerchiefs ; and there were 
ugly old crones, both male and female, with a ghastly 
kind of contentment upon them which was not at all 
comforting to see. Upon the whole, it was the dragon. 
Pauperism, in a very weak and impotent condition ; 
toothless, fangless, drawing his breath heavily enough, 
and hardly worth chaining up. 

When the service was over, I walked with the humane 
and conscientious gentleman whose duty it was to take 
that walk, that Sunday morning, through the little world 
of poverty enclosed within the workhouse walls. It was 
inhabited by a population of some fifteen hundred or two 
thousand paupers, ranging from the infant newly born or 
not yet come into the pauper world, to the old man dying 
on his bed. 

In a room opening from a squalid yard, where a num- 
ber of listless women were lounging to and fro, trying to 
get warm in the ineffectual sunshine of the tardy May 
morning — in the “ Itch Ward.” not to compromise the 
truth — a woman such as Hogartti has often drawn, 
was hurriedly getting on her gown before a dusty fire. 
She was the nurse, or wardswoman, of that insalubrious 
department — herself a pauper — flabby, raw-boned, un- 


254 


A WALK IN A WORKHOUSE. 


tidy — unpromising and coarse of aspect as need be. 
But, on being spoken to about the patients whom she 
had in charge, she turned round, with her shabby gown 
half on, half off, and fell a-crying with all her might. 
Not for show, not querulously, not in any mawkish sen- 
timent, but in the deep grief and affliction of her heart 
turning away her dishevelled head : sobbing most bit- 
terly, wringing her hands, and letting fall abundance of 
great tears, that choked her utterance. What was the 
matter with the nurse of the itch-ward ? Oh, “ the 
dropped child ” was dead ! Oh, the child that was found 
in the street, and she had brought up ever since, had 
died an hour ago, and see where the little creature lay, 
beneath this cloth ! The dear, the pretty dear ! 

The dropped child seemed too small and poor a tiling 
for Death to be in earnest with, but Death had taken it ; 
and already its diminutive form was neatly washed, com- 
posed, and stretched as if in sleep upon a box. I thought 
I heard a voice from Heaven saying, It shall be well for 
thee, 0 nurse of the itch -ward, when some less gentle 
pauper does those offices to thy cold form, that such as 
the dropped child are the angels who behold my Father’s 
face ! 

In another room, were several ugly old women crouch- 
ing, witch-like, round a hearth, and chattering and nod- 
ding, after the manner of the monkeys. “ All well here ? 
And enough to eat ? ” A general chattering and chuck 
ling ; at last an answer from a volunteer. “ Oh yes, 
gentleman ! Bless you gentleman ! Lord bless the 
parish of St. So-and-So ! It feed the hungry, Sir, and 
give drink to the thusty, and it warm them which is cold, 
so it do, and good luck to the parish of St. So-and-So, 
and thankee gentleman ! ” Elsewhere, a party of pau- 


A WALK IN A WORKHOUSE. 


25b 


per nurses were at dinner. “ How do you get on ? ” 
“ Oh pretty well Sir ! We works hard, and we lives 
hard — like the sodgers ! ” 

In another room, a kind of purgatory or place of tran- 
sition, six or eight noisy madwomen were gathered to- 
gether, under the superintendence of one sane attendant. 
Among them was a girl of two or three and twenty, very 
prettily dressed, of most respectable appearance, and 
good manners, who had been brought in from the house 
where she had lived as domestic servant (having, I sup- 
pose, no friends), on account of being subject to epileptic 
fits, and requiring to be removed under the influence of 
a very bad one. She was by no means of the same 
stuff, or the same breeding, or the same experience, or 
in the same state of mind, as those by whom she was 
surrounded ; and she pathetically complained that the 
daily association and the nightly noise made her worse, 
and was driving her mad — which was perfectly evident. 
The case was noted for inquiry and redress, but she said 
she had already been there for some weeks. 

If this girl had stolen her mistress’s watch, I do not 
hesitate to say she would have been infinitely better off. 
We have come to this absurd, this dangerous, this mon- 
strous pass, that the dishonest felon is, in respect of 
cleanliness, order, diet, and accommodation, better pro- 
vided for, and taken care of, than the honest pauper. 

And this conveys no special imputation on the work- 
house of the parish of St. So-and-So, where, on the con- 
trary, I saw many things to commend. It was very 
agreeable, recollecting that most infamous and atrocious 
enormity committed at Tooting — an enormity which, a 
hundred years hence, will still be vividly remembered in 
the by-ways of English life, and which has done more to 


256 


A WALK IN A WORKHOUSL. 


\ 


engender a gloomy discontent and suspicion among many 
thousands of the people than all the Chartist leaders 
could have done in all their lives — to find the pauper 
children in this workhouse looking robust and well, and 
apparently the objects of very great care. In the Infant 
School — a large, light, airy room at the top of the build- 
ing — the little creatures, being at dinner, and eating 
their potatoes heartily, were not cowed by the presence 
of strange visitors, but stretched out their small hands 
to be shaken, with a very pleasant confidence. And it 
was comfortable to see two mangey pauper rocking- 
horses rampant in a corner. In the girls’ school, where 
the dinner was also in progress, everything bore a cheer- 
ful and healthy aspect. The meal was over, in the boys’ 
school, by the time of our arrival there, and the room 
was not yet quite re-arranged ; but the boys were roam- 
ing unrestrained about a large and airy yard, as any other 
schoolboys might have done. Some of them had been 
drawing large ships upon the schoolroom wall ; and if 
they had a mast with shrouds and stays set up for prac- 
tice (as they have in the Middlesex House of „Correc- 
tion), it would be so much the better. At present, if a 
boy should feel a strong impulse upon him to learn the 
art of going aloft, he could only gratify it, I presume, as 
the men and women paupers gratify their aspirations 
after better board and lodging, by smashing as many 
workhouse windows' as possible, and being promoted to 
prison. l 

In one place, the Newgate of the Workhouse, a com- 
pany of boys and youths were locked up in a yard alone ; 
their day-room being a kind of kennel where the casual 
poor used formerly to be littered down at night. Divers 
Df them had been there some long time. “ Are they 




A WALK IN A WORKHOUSE 


257 


never going away ? ” was the natural inquiry. Most 
of them are crippled, in some form or other,” said the 
Wardsman, “ and not fit for anything.” They slunk 
about, like dispirited wolves or hyenas ; and made a 
pounce at their food when it was served out, much as 
those animals do. The big-headed idiot shuffling his 
feet along the pavement, in the sunlight outside, was a 
more agreeable object everyway. 

Groves of babies in arms ; groves of mothers and 
other sick women in bed ; groves of lunatics ; jungles of 
men in stone-paved down-stairs day-rooms, waiting for 
their dinners ; longer and longer groves of old people, 
in up-stairs Infirmary wards, wearing out life, God knows 
how — this was* the scenery through which the walk lay, 
for two hours. In some of these latter chambers, there 
were pictures stuck against the wall, and a neat display 
of crockery and pewter on a kind of side-board ; now and 
then it was a treat to see a plant or two ; in almost every 
ward there was a cat. 

In all of these Long Walks of aged and infirm, some 
old people were bed-ridden, and had been for a long time ; 
some were sitting on their beds half naked ; some dying 
in their beds ; some out of bed, and sitting at a table near 
the fire. A sullen or lethargic indifference to what was 
asked, a blunted sensibility to everything but warmth 
arid food, a moody absence of complaint as being of no 
use, a dogged silence and resentful desire to be left alone 
again, I thought were generally apparent. On our walk- 
ing into the midst of one of these dreary perspectives of 
old men, nearly the following little dialogue took place, 
the nurse not being immediately at hand : 

u All well here ? ” 

u 

* ; -'.No answer. An old man in a Scotch cap sitting 



VOL. II. 


17 


258 


A WALK IN A WORKHOUSE. 


among others on a form at the table, eating out of a tin 
porringer, pushes back his cap a little to look at us, claps 
it down on his forehead again with the palm of his hand, 
and goes on eating. 

“ All well here ? ” (repeated.) 

No answer. Another old man sitting on his bed, 
paralytically peeling a boiled potato, lifts his head, and 
stares. 

“ Enough to eat ? ” 

No answer. Another old man, in bed, turns himself 
and coughs. 

“ How are you to-day ? ” To the last old man. 

That old man says nothing ; but another old man, a 
tall old man of very good address, speaking with perfect 
correctness, comes forward from somewhere, and volun- 
teers an answer. The reply almost always proceeds 
from a volunteer, and not from the person looked at or 
spoken to. 

“ We are very old, Sir,” in a mild, distinct voice. 
“ We can’t expect to be well, most of us.” 

“ Are you comfortable ? ” 

“ I have no complaint to make, Sir.” With a half 
shake of his head, a half shrug of his shoulders, and a 
kind of apologetic smile. 

“ Enough to eat ? ” 

“Why, Sir, I have but a poor appetite,” with the 
same air as before ; “ and yet I get through my allow- 
ance very easily.” 

“ But,” showing a porringer with a Sunday dinner in 
it ; “ here is a portion of mutton, and three potatoes. 
You can’t starve on that ? ” 

“ Oh dear no, Sir,” with the same apologetic air. “ Not 
. starve.” 

“ What do you want ? ” 


A WALK IN A WORKHOUSE. 


259 


u We have very little bread, Sir. It’s an exceedingly 
small quantity of bread.’’ 

The nurse, who is now rubbing her hands at the ques- 
tioner’s elbow, interferes with, “ It a’n’t much raly, Sir. 
You see they’ve only six ounces a day, and when they’ve 
took their breakfast, there can only be a little left for 
night, Sir.” 

Another old man, hitherto invisible, rises out of hi 
bed-clothes, as out of a grave, and looks on. 

“ You have tea at night ? ” The questioner is still 
addressing the well-spoken old man. 

“ Yes, Sir, we have tea at night.” 

“ And you save what bread you can from the morn- 
ing, to eat with it ? ” 

“ Yes, Sir — if we can save any.” 

“ And you want more to eat with it ? ” 

“ Yes, Sir.” With a very anxious face. 

The questioner, in the kindness of his heart, appears 
a little discomposed, and changes the subject. 

“ What has become of the old man who used to lie in 
that bed in the corner ? ” 

The nurse don’t remember what old man is referred 

to. There has been such a many old men. The well- 

spoken old man is doubtful. The spectral old man who 

has come to life in bed, says, “ Billy Stevens.” Another 

old man who has previously had his head in the fire- 
% 

place, pipes out, — 

44 Charley Walters.” 

Something like a feeble interest is awakened. 1 sup- 
pose Charley Walters had conversation in him. 

“ He’s dead.” says the piping old man. 

Another old man, with one eye screwed up, hastily 
displaces the piping old man, and says. — - 


A WALK IK A WORKHOUSE. 


260 


“ Yes ! Charley Walters died in that bed, and — 
and ” — 

“ Billy Stevens,” persists the spectral old man. 

“ No, no ! and Johnny Rogers died in that bed, and — ■ 
and — they’re both on ’em dead — and Sam’el Bow- 
yer ; ” this seems very extraordinary to him ; “ he went 
cnt ! ” 

With this he subsides, and all the old men (having 
had quite enough of it) subside, and the spectral old 
man goes into his grave again, and takes the shade of 
Billy Stevens with him. 

As we turn to go out at the door, another previously 
invisible old man, a hoarse old man in a flannel gown, 
is standing there, as if he had just come up through the 
floor. 

“ I beg your pardon, Sir, could I take the liberty of 
saying a word ? ” 

“ Yes , what is it ? ” 

“ I am greatly better in my health, Sir ; but what I 
want, to get me quite round,” with his hand on his 
throat, “ is a little fresh air, Sir. It has always done 
my complaint so much good, Sir. The regular leave 
for going out, comes round so seldom, that if the gen- 
tlemen, next Friday, would give me leave to go out 
walking, now and then — for only an hour or so, 
Sir ! — ” 

Who could wonder, looking through those weary 
vistas of bed and infirmity, that it should do him good 
to meet with some other scenes, and assure himself that 
there was something else on earth? Who could help 
wondering why the old men lived on as they did ; what 
grasp they had on life ; what crumbs of interest or occu- 
pation they could pick up from its bare board ; whether 


A WALK IN A WORKHOUSE. 


261 


Charley Walters had ever described to them the days 
when he kept company with some old pauper woman 
in the bud, or Billy Stevens ever told them of the time 
when he was a dweller in the far-off foreign land called 
Home ! 

The morsel of burnt child, lying in another room, sc 
patiently, in bed, wrapped in lint, and looking steadfastly 
at us with his bright quiet eyes when we spoke to him 
kindly, looked as if the knowledge of these things, and of 
all the tender things there are to think about, might have 
been in his mind — as if he thought, with us, that there 
was a fellow-feeling in the pauper nurses which appeared 
to make them more kind to their charges than the race 
of common nurses in the hospitals — as if he mused upon 
the Future of some older children lying around him in 
the same place, and thought it best, perhaps, all things 
considered, that he should die — as if he knew, without 
fear, of those many coffins, made and unmade, piled up 
in the store below — and of his unknown friend, “the 
dropped child, calm upon the box-lid covered with a 
cloth. But there was something wistful and appealing, 
too, in his tiny face, as if, in the midst of all the hard 
necessities and incongruities he pondered on, he pleaded, 
in behalf of the helpless and the aged poor, for a little 
more liberty — and a little more bread. 


PRINCE BULL. A FAIRY TALE. 


« 

Once upon a time, and of course it was in the Golden 
Age, and I hope you may know when that was, for I am 
sure I don’t, though I have tried hard to find out, there 
lived in a rich and fertile country, a powerful Prince 
whose name was Bull. He had gone through a great 
deal of fighting, in his time, about all sorts of things, in- 
cluding nothing ; but, had gradually settled down to be a 
steady, peaceable, good-natured, corpulent, rather sleepy 
Prince. 

This Puissant Prince was married to a lovely Princess 
whose name was Fair Freedom. She had brought him 
a large fortune, and had borne him an immense number 
of children, and had set them to spinning, and farming, 
and engineering, and soldiering, and sailoring, and doctor- 
ing, and lawyering, and preaching, and all kinds of trades. 
The coffers of Prince Bull were full of treasure, his cel- 
lars were crammed with delicious wines from all parts of 
the world, the richest gold and silver plate that ever was 
seen adorned his side-boards, his sons were strong, his 
daughters were handsome, and in short you might have 
supposed that if there ever lived upon earth a fortunate 
and happy Prince, the name of that Prince, take him 
for all in all, was assuredly Prince Bull. 

Bat, appearances, as we all know, are not always to be 


PRINCE BULL. A FAIRY TALE. 


263 


trusted — far from it ; and if they had led you to this 
conclusion respecting Prince Bull, they would have led 
you wrong as they often have led me. 

For, this good Prince had two sharp thorns in his pil- 
low, two hard knobs in his crown, two heavy loads on 
his mind, two unbridled nightmares in his sleep, two 
rocks ahead in his course. He could not by any means 
get servants to suit him, and he had a tyrannical old 
godmother whose name was Tape. 

She was a Fairy, this Tape, and was a bright red all 
over. She was disgustingly prim and formal, and could 
never bend herself a hair’s breadth this way or that way, 
out of her naturally crooked shape. But, she was very 
potent in her wicked art. She could stop the fastest thing 
in the world, change the strongest thing into the weakest, 
and the most useful into the most useless. To do this 
she had only to put her cold hand upon it, and repeat her 
own name, Tape. Then it withered away. 

At the Court of Prince Bull — at least I don’t mean 
literally at his court, because he was a very genteel 
Prince, and readily yielded to his godmother when she 
always reserved that for his hereditary Lords and Ladies 
— in the dominions of Prince Bull, among the great 
mass of the community who were called in the language 
of that polite country the Mobs and the Snobs, were a 
number of very ingenious men, who were always busy 
with some invention or other, for promoting the pros- 
perity of the Prince’s subjects, and augmenting the 
Prince’s power. But, whenever they submitted their 
models for the Prince’s approval, his godmother stepped 
forward, laid her hand upon them, and said “ Tape.” 
Hence it came to pass, that when any particularly good 
discovery was made, the discoverer usually carried it off 


264 


PRINCE BULL. A FAIRY TALE. 


to some other Prince, in foreign parts, who had no old 
godmother who said Tape. This was not on the whole 
an advantageous state of things for Prince Bull, to the 
best of my understanding. 

The worst of it was, that Prince Bull had in course 
of years lapsed into such a state of subjection to this un- 
lucky godmother, that he never made any serious effort 
to rid himself of her tyranny. I have said this was the 
worst of it, but there I was wrong, because there is a 
worse consequence still, behind. The Prince’s numerous 
family became so downright sick and tired of Tape, that* 
when they should have helped the Prince out of the diffi- 
culties into which that evil creature led him, they fell 
into a dangerous habit of moodily keeping away from 
him in an impassive and indifferent manner, as though 
they had quite forgotten that no harm could happen to 
the Prince their father, without its inevitably affecting 
themselves. 

Such was the aspect of affairs at the court of Prince 
Bull, when this great Prince found it necessary to go to 
war with Prince Bear. He had been for some time 
very doubtful of his servants, who, besides being indolent 
and addicted to enriching their families at his expense, 
domineered over him dreadfully ; threatening to discharge 
themselves if they were found the least fault with, pre- 
tending that they had done a wonderful amount of work 
when they had done nothing, making the most unmeaning 
speeches that ever were heard in the Prince’s name, and 
uniformly showing themselves to be very inefficient in- 
leed. Though, that some of them had excellent charac- 
ters from previous situations is not to be denied. Well; 
Prince Bull called his servants together, and said to 
them one and all, u Send out my army against Prince 


PRINCE BULL. A FAIRY TALE. 


265 


Bear. Clothe it, arm it, feed it, provide it with all 
necessaries and contingencies, and I will pay the piper ! 
Do your duty by my brave troops,” said the Prince, “ and 
do it well, and I will pour my treasure out like water, to 
defray the cost. Who ever heard me complain of money 
well laid out ! ” Which indeed he had reason for saying, 
inasmuch as he was well known to be a truly generous 
and munificent Prince. 

When the servants heard those words, they sent out 
the army against Prince Bear, and they set the army 
tailors to work, and the army provision merchants, and 
the makers of guns both great and small, and the gun- 
powder makers, and the makers of ball, shell, and shot ; 
and they bought up all manner of stores and ships, with- 
out troubling their heads about the price, and appeared 
to be so busy that the good Prince rubbed his hands, and 
(using a favorite expression of his) said, “ It’s all right ! ” 
But, while they were thus employed, the Prince’s god- 
mother, who was a great favorite with those servants, 
looked in upon them continually all day long, and when- 
ever she popped in her head at the door, said, “ How do 
you do, my children ? What are you doing here ? ” 
“ Official business, godmother.” “ Oho ! ” says this 
wicked Fairy. “ — Tape!” And then the business 
all went wrong, whatever it was, and the servants’ heads 
became so addled and muddled that they thought they 
were doing wonders. 

Now, this was very bad conduct on the part of the 
vicious old nuisance, and she ought to have been stran- 
gled, even if she had stopped here ; but, she didn’t stop 
here, as you shall learn. For, a number of the Prince’s 
subjects, being very fond of the Prince’s army who were 
the bravest of men, assembled together and provided all 


266 


PRINCE BULL A FAIRY TALE. 


manner of eatables and drinkables, and books to read, 
and clothes to wear, and tobacco to smoke, and candles 
to burn, and nailed them up in great packing-cases, and 
put them aboard a great many ships, to be carried out to 
(hat brave army in the cold and inclement country where 
they were fighting Prince Bear. Then, up comes this 
wicked Fairy as the ships were weighing anchor, and 
says, “ How do you do, my children ? What are you 
doing here ? ” — “ We are going with all these comforts to 
the army, godmother.” — “ Oho ! ” says she. u A pleas- 
ant voyage, my darlings. — Tape ! ” And from that time 
forth, those enchanted ships went sailing, against wind 
and tide and rhyme and reason, round and round the 
world, and whenever they touched at any port were 
ordered off immediately, and could never deliver their 
cargoes anywhere. 

This, again, was very bad conduct on the part of the 
vicious old nuisance, and she ought to have been stran- 
gled for it if she had done nothing worse ; but, she did 
something worse still, as you shall learn. For, she gor 
astride of an official broomstick, and muttered as a spell 
these two sentences, On Her Majesty’s service,” and 
“ I have the honor to be, sir, your most obedient ser- 
vant,” and presently alighted in the cold and inclement 
country where the army of Prince Bull were encamped 
to fight the army of Prince Bear. On the seashore of 
that country, she found piled together, a number of houses 
for the army to live in, and a quantity of provisions for 
the army to live upon, and a quantity of clothes for the 
army to wear : while, sitting in the mud gazing at them, 
were a group of officers as red to look at as the wicked 
old woman herself. So, she said to one of them, “ Who 
are you, my darling, and how do you do ? ” — “ I am the 


PRINCE BULL. A FAIRY TALE. 


26 ? 


*■ 

Quartermaster General’s Department, godmother, and 1 
am pretty well.” — Then she said to another, “ Who are 
you , my darling, and how do you do ? ” — “I am the 
Commissariat Department, godmother, and T am pretty 
well.” Then she said to another, “Who are you , my 
darling, and how do you do ? ” — “I am the Head of the 
Medical Department, godmother, and I am pretty well.” 
Then, she said to some gentlemen scented with lavender, 
who kept themselves at a great distance from the rest, 
“ And who are you , my pretty pets, and how do you 
do?” And they answered, “ We-aw-are-the-aw-Staff- 
aw-Department, godmother, and we are very well in- 
deed.” — “I am delighted to see you all, my beauties,” 
says this wicked old Fairy, “ — Tape ! ” Upon that, the 
houses, clothes, and provisions, all mouldered away ; and 
the soldiers who were sound, fell sick ; and the soldiers 
who were sick, died miserably ; and the noble army of 
Prince Bull perished. 

When the dismal news of his great loss was carried to 
the Prince, he suspected his godmother very much in- 
deed ; but, he knew that his servants must have kept 
company with the malicious beldame, and must have 
given way to her, and therefore he resolved to turn those 
servants out of their places. So, he called to him a Roe- 
buck who had the gift of speech, and he said, “ Good 
Roebuck, tell them they must go.” So, the good Roe- 
buck delivered his message, so like a man that you might 
have supposed him to be nothing but a man, and they 
were turned out — but, not without warning, for that 
they had had a long time. 

And now comes the most extraordinary part of the 
history of this Prince. When he had turned out those 
servants, of course he wanted others. What was his 


268 


PRINCE BULL. A FAIRY TALE. 


astonishment to find that in all his dominions, which 
contained no less than twenty-seven millions of people, 
there were not above five-and-twenty servants alto- 
gether ! They were so lofty about it, too, that instead 
of discussing whether they should hire themselves as 
servants to Prince Bull, they turned things topsy-turvy, 
and considered whether as a favor they should hire 
Prince Bull to be their master !. While they were argu- 
ing this point among themselves quite at their .eisure, 
the wicked old red Fairy was incessantly going up and 
down, knocking at the doors of twelve of the oldest of 
the five-and-twenty, who were the oldest inhabitants in 
all that country, and whose united ages amounted to one 
thousand, saying, “ Will you hire Prince Bull for your 
master ? — Will you hire Prince Bull for your mas- 
ter ? ” To which one answered, “ I will if next door 
will ; ” and another, “ I won’t if over the way does ; ” 
and another, “ I can’t if he, she, or they, might, could, 
would, or should.” And all this time Prince Bull’s af- 
fairs were going to rack and ruin. 

At last, Prince Bull in the height of his perplexity 
assumed a thoughtful face, as if he were struck by an 
entirely new idea. The wicked old Fairy, seeing this, 
was at his elbow directly, and said, “ How do you do, my 
Prince, and what are you thinking of ? ” — “I am think- 
ing, godmother,” says he, “ that among all the seven-and- 
twenty millions of my subjects who have never been in 
service, there are men of intellect and business who have 
made me very famous both among my friends and ene- 
mies.” — “ Ay, truly?” says the Fairy. — “ Ay, truly,” 
says the Prince. — “And what then?” says the Fairy. 
— “ Why, then,” says he, “ since the regular old class 
of servants do so ill, are so hard to get, and carry it with 


PRINCE BULL. A FAIRY TALE. 2 GO 

bo high a hand, perhaps I might try to make good ser- 
vants of some of these.” The words had no sooner 
passed his lips than she returned, chuckling, “ You think 
so, do you ? Indeed, my Prince ? — Tape ! ” There- 
upon he directly forgot what he was thinking of, and 
cried out lamentably to the old servants, “ O, do come 
and hire your poor old master ! Pray do ! On any 
terms ! ” 

And this, for the present, finishes the story of Prince 
Bull. I wish I could wind it up by saying that he lived 
happy ever afterwards, but I cannot in my conscience do 
so ; for, with Tape at his elbow, and his estranged chil- 
dren fatally repelled by her from coming near him, I do 
not, to tell you the plain truth, believe in the possibility 
of such an end to it. 




A PLATED ARTICLE. 


1 

Putting up for the night in one of the chiefest towns 
of Staffordshire, I find it to be by no means a lively 
town. In fact it is as dull and dead a town as any one 
could desire not to see. It seems as if its whole popu- 
lation might be imprisoned in its Railway Station. The 
Refreshment-Room at that Station is a vortex of dissi- 
pation compared with the extinct town-inn, the Dodo, in 
the dull High Street. 

Why High Street ? Why not rather Low Street, 
Flat Street, Low-Spirited Street, Used-up Street ? Where 
are the people who belong to the High Street ? Can 
they all be dispersed over the face of the country, seek- 
ing the unfortunate Strolling Manager who decamped 
from the mouldy little Theatre last week, in the begin- 
ning of his season (as his play-bills testify), repentantly 
resolved to bring him back, and feed him, and be enter- 
tained ? Or, can they all be gathered to their fathers in 
the two old churchyards near to the High Street — re- 
tirement into which churchyards appears to be a mere 
ceremony, there is so very little life outside their con- 
fines, and such small discernible difference between being 
buried alive in the town, and buried dead in the town 
tombs ? Over the way, opposite to the staring blank bow 
windows of the Dodo, are a little ironmonger’s shop, a 


\ 


A PLATED ARTICLE. 271 

little tailor’s shop (with a picture of the Fashions in the 
small window, and a bandy legged baby on the pavement 
staring at it) — a watchmaker’s shop, where all the 
clocks and watches must be stopped, I am sure, for they 
could never have the courage to go, with the town in 
general, and the Dodo in particular, looking at them. 
Shade of Miss Linwood, erst of Leicester Square, Lon- 
don, thou art welcome here, and thy retreat is fitly 
chosen ! I myself was one of the last visitors to that aw- 
ful storehouse of thy life’s work, where an anchorite old 
man and woman took my shilling with a solemn wonder, 
and conducting me to a gloomy sepulchre of needlework 
dropping to pieces with dust and age and shrouded in 
twilight at high noon, left me there, chilled, frightened, 
and alone. And now, in ghostly letters on all the dead 
walls of this dead town, I read thy honored name, and 
find that thy Last Supper, worked in Berlin Wool, in- 
vites inspection as a powerful excitement ! 

Where are the people who are bidden with so much 
cry to this feast of little wool ? Where are they ? Who 
are they ? They are not the bandy-legged baby study- 
ing the fashions in the tailor’s window. They are not 
the two earthly ploughmen lounging outside the sad- 
dler’s shop, in the stiff square where the Town Hall 
stands, like a brick and mortar private on parade. 
They are not the landlady of the Dodo in the empty 
bar, whose eye had trouble in it and no welcome, when 
I asked for dinner. They are not the turnkeys of the 
Town Jail, looking out of the gateway in their uniforms, 
as if they had locked up all the balance (as my Amer- 
,can friends would say) of the inhabitants, and could 
now rest a little. They are not the two dusty millers 
in the white mill down by the river, where the great 


272 


A PLATED ARTICLE. 


water-wheel goes heavily round and round, like the 
monotonous days and nights in this forgotten place. 
Then who are they, for there is no one else ? No ; this 
deponent maketh oath and saith that there is no one 
else, save and except the waiter at the Dodo, now lay- 
ing the cloth. I have paced the streets, and stared at 
the houses, and am come back to the blank bow window 
of the Dodo ; and the town clock strikes seven, and the 
reluctant echoes seem to cry, u Don’t wake us ! ” and 
the bandy-legged baby has gone home to bed. 

If the Dodo were only a gregarious bird — if it had 
only some confused idea of making a comfortable nest 
— I could hope to get through the hours between this 
and bedtime, without being consumed by devouring 
melancholy. But, the Dodo’s habits are all wrong. It 
provides me with a trackless desert of sitting-room, with 
a chair for every day in the year, a table for every 
month, and a waste of sideboard where a lonely China 
vase pines in a corner for its mate long departed, and 
will never make a match with the candlestick in the 
opposite corner if it live till Doomsday. The Dodo 
has nothing in the larder. Even now, I behold the 
Boots returning with my sole in a piece of paper ; and 
with that portion of my dinner, the Boots, perceiving 
me at the blank bow window, slaps his leg as he comes 
across the road, pretending it is something else. The 
Dodo excludes the outer air. When I mount up to my 
bedroom, a smell of closeness and flue gets lazily up 
my nose like sleepy snuff. The loose little bits of car- 
pet writhe under my tread, and take wormy shapes. I 
don’t know the ridiculous man in the looking-glass, be- 
yond having met him once or twice in a dish-cover — 
and I can never shave him to-morrow morning ! The 


A PLATED ARTICLE. 


278 


Dodo is narrow-minded as to towels ; expects me to 
wash on a freemason’s apron without the trimming : 
when I ask for soap, gives me a stony-hearted some- 
thing white, with no more lather in it than the Elgin 
marbles. The Dodo has seen better days, and pos- 
sesses interminable stables at the back — silent, grass- 
grown, broken-windowed, horseless. 

This mournful bird can fry a sole, however, which is 
much. Can cook a steak, too, which is more. I won- 
der where it gets its Sherry ! If I were to send my 
pint of wine to some famous chemist to be analyzed, 
what would it turn out to be made of? It tastes of 
pepper, sugar, bitter almonds, vinegar, warm knives, 
any flat drink, and a little brandy. Would it unman 
a Spanish exile by reminding him of his native land at 
all ? I think not. If there really be any townspeople 
out of the churchyards, and if a caravan of them ever 
do dine, with a bottle of wine per man, in this desert of 
the Dodo, it must make good for the doctor next day ! 

Where was the waiter born ? How did he come 
here ? Has he any hope of getting aw r ay from here ? 
Does he ever receive a letter, or take a ride upon the 
railway, or see anything but * the Dodo ? Perhaps he 
has seen the Berlin Wool. He appears to have a silent 
sorrow on him, and it may be that. He clears the 
table ; draws the dingy curtains of the great bow win- 
dow, which so unwillingly consent to meet, that they 
must be pinned together ; leaves me by the fire with 
my pint decanter, and a little thin funnel-shaped wine- 
glass, and a plate of pale biscuits — in themselves en- 
gendering desperation. 

No book, no newspaper ! I left the Arabian Nights 

in the railway carriage, and have nothing to read but 

VOL. II. 18 


274 


A PLATED ARTICLE. 


Bradshaw, and “ that way madness lies.” Remember- 
ing what prisoners and shipwrecked mariners have done 
to exercise their minds in solitude, I repeat the multi- 
plication table, the pence table, and the shilling table : 
which are all the tables I happen to know. What if I 
write something? The Dodo keeps no pens but steel 
pens ; and those I always stick through the paper, and 
can turn to no other account. 

What am I to do ? Even if I could have the bandy- 
legged baby knocked up and brought here, I could offer 
him nothing but sherry, and that would be the death of 
him. He would never hold up his head again if he 
touched it. I can’t go to bed, because I have con- 
ceived a mortal hatred for my bedroom ; and I can't 
go away, because there is no train for my place of des- 
tination until morning. To burn the biscuits will be 
but a fleeting joy ; still it is a temporary relief, and 
here they go on the fire ! Shall I break the plate ? 
First let me look at the back, and see who made it. 
Copeland. 

Copeland ! Stop a moment. Was it yesterday I 
visited Copeland’s works, and saw them making plates ? 
In the confusion of travelling about, it might be yester- 
day or it might be yesterday month ; but I think it was 
yesterday. I appeal to the plate. The plate says, de- 
cidedly, yesterday. I find the plate, as I look at it, 
growing into a companion. 

Don’t you remember (says the plate) how you steamed 
away, yesterday morning, in the bright sun and the east 
wind, along the valley of the sparkling Trent? Don’t 
you recollect how many kilns you flew past, looking like 
the bowls of gigantic tobacco pipes, cut short off from 
the stem and turned upside down ? And the fires — 


A PLATED ARTICLE. 


275 


and the smoke — and the roads made with bits of crock- 
ery, as if all the plates and dishes in the civilized world 
had been Macadamized, expressly for the laming of all 
the horses ? Of course I do ! 

And don’t you remember (says the plate) how you 
alighted at Stoke — a picturesque heap of houses, kilns, 
smoke, wharves, canals, and river, lying (as was most 
appropriate) in a basin — and how, after climbing up 
the sides of the basin to look at the prospect, you trun- 
dled down again at a walking-match pace, and straight 
proceeded to my father’s, Copeland’s, where the whole 
of my family, high and low, rich and poor, are turned 
out upon the world from our nursery and seminary, 
covering some fourteen acres of ground ? And don’t 
you remember what we spring from : — heaps of lumps 
of clay, partially prepared and cleaned in Devonshire 
and Dorsetshire, whence said clay principally comes — 
and hills of flint, without which we should want our 
ringing sound, and should never be musical? And as 
to the flint, don’t you recollect that it is first burnt in 
kilns, and is then laid under the four iron feet of a de- 
mon slave, subject to violent stamping fits, who, when 
they come on, stamps away insanely with his four iron 
legs, and w r ould crush all the flint in the Isle of Thanet 
to powder, without leaving off? And as to the clay, 
don’t you recollect how it is put into mills or teazers, 
and is sliced, and dug, and cut at, by endless knives, 
clogged and stickey, but persistent — and is pressed out 
of that machine through a square trough, whose form 
it takes — and is cut off in square lumps and thrown 
into a vat, and there mixed with water, and beaten to 
a pulp by paddle-wheels — and is then run into a rough 
house, all rugged beams and ladders splashed with white, 


276 


A PLATED ARTICLE. 


— superintended by GrindofF the Miller in his work- 
ing-clothes, all splashed with white, — where it passes 
through no end of machinery-moved sieves all splashed 
with white, arranged in an ascending scale of fineness 
(some so fine, that three hundred silk threads cross each 
other in a single square inch of their surface), and all 
in a violent state of ague with their teeth forever chat- 
tering, and their bodies forever shivering ? And as to 
the flint again, isn’t it mashed and mollified and trou- 
bled and soothed, exactly as rags are in a paper-mill, 
until it is reduced to a pap so fine that it contains no 
atom of “ grit ” perceptible to the nicest taste ? And 
as to the flint and the clay together, are they not, aftei 
all this, mixed in the proportion of five of clay to one 
of flint, and isn’t the compound — known as “ slip ” — 
run into oblong troughs, where its superfluous moisture 
may evaporate ; and finally, isn’t it slapped and banged 
and beaten and patted and kneaded and wedged and 
knocked about like butter, until it becomes a beautiful 
gray dough, ready for the potter’s use ? 

In regard of the potter, popularly so called (says the 
plate), you don’t mean to say you have forgotten that a 
workman called a Thrower is the man under whose hand 
this gray dough takes the shapes of the simpler house- 
hold vessels as quickly as the eye can follow ? You 
don’t mean to say you cannot call him up before you, sit- 
ting, with his attendant woman, at his potter’s wheel — 
a disc about the size of a dinner plate, revolving on two 
drums slowly or quickly as he wills — who made you a 
complete breakfast-set for a bachelor, as a good-humored 
little off-hand joke ? You remember how he took up as 
much dough as he wanted, and, throwing it on his wheel, 
in a moment fashioned it into a teacup — caught up more 


A PLATED ARTICLE. 


277 


clay and made a saucer — a larger dab and whirled it 
into a teapot — winked at a smaller dab and converted it 
into the lid of the teapot, accurately fitting by the meas- 
urement of his eye alone — coaxed a middle-sized dab 
for two seconds, broke it, turned it over at the rim, and 
made a milkpot — laughed, and turned out a slop-basin — 
coughed, and provided for the sugar ? Neither, I think, 
are you oblivious of the newer mode of making various 
articles, but especially basins, according to which im- 
provement a mould revolves instead of a disc? For you 
must remember (says the plate) how you saw the mould 
of a little basin spinning round and round, and how* the 
workman smoothed and pressed a handful of dough upon 
it, and how with an instrument called a profile (a piece 
of wood, representing the profile of a basin’s foot) he 
cleverly scraped and carved the ring which makes the 
base of any such basin, and then took the basin off the 
lathe like a doughey skull-cap to be dried, and afterwards 
(in what is called a green state) to be put into a second 
lathe, there to be finished and burnished with a steel 
burnisher ? And as to moulding in general (says the 
plate), it can’t be necessary for me to remind you that all 
ornamental articles, and indeed all articles not quite cir- 
cular, are made in moulds. F or you must remember how 
you saw the vegetable dishes, for example, being made in 
moulds ; and how the handles of teacups, and the spouts 
of teapots, and the feet of tureens, and so forth, are al 
made in little separate moulds, and are each stuck on to 
the body corporate, of which it is destined to form a part, 
with a stuff called “ slag,” as quickly as you can recollect 
it. Further, you learnt — you know you did — in the 
same visit, how the beautiful sculptures in the delicate 
new material called Parian, are all constructed in moulds ; 


278 


A PLATEL ARTICLE. 


how, into that material, animal bones are ground up, be- 
cause the phosphate of lime contained in bones makes it 
translucent ; how everything is moulded, before going 
into the fire, one-fourth larger than it is intended to come 
out of the fire, because it shrinks in that proportion in 
he intense heat ; how, when a figure shrinks unequally, 
t is spoiled — emerging from the furnace a mis-shapen 
birth ; a big head and a little body, or a little head and 
a big body, or a Quasimodo with long arms and short 
legs, or a Miss Biffin with neither legs nor arms worth 
mentioning. 

And as to the Kilns, in which the firing takes place, 
and in which some of the more precious articles are burnt 
repeatedly, in various stages of their process towards com- 
pletion, — as to the Kilns (says the plate, warming with 
the recollection), if you don’t remember them with a 
horrible interest, what did you ever go to Copeland’s for ? 
When you stood inside of one of those inverted bowls of 
a Pre-Adamite tobacco-pipe, looking up at the blue sky 
through the open top far off, as you might have looked 
up from a well, sunk under the centre of the pavement 
of the Pantheon at Rome, had you the least idea where 
you were ? And when you found yourself surrounded, 
in that dome-shaped cavern, by innumerable columns of 
an unearthly order of architecture, supporting nothing, 
and squeezed close together as if a Pre- Adamite Samson 
had taken a vast Hall in his arms and crushed it into the 
smallest possible space, had you the least idea what they 
were ? No (says the plate), of course not ! And when 
you found that each of those pillars was a pile of ingen- 
iously made vessels of coarse clay — called Saggers — 
looking, when separate, like raised-pies for the table of 
the mighty Giant Blunderbore, and now all full of vari 


A PLATED ARTICLE. 


279 


dus articles of pottery ranged in them in baking order, 
the bottom of each vessel serving for the cover of the one 
below, and the whole Kiln rapidly filling with these, tier 
upon tier, until the last workman should have barely room 
to crawl out, before the closing of the jagged aperture 
in the wall and the kindling of the gradual fire ; did you 
not stand amazed to think that all the year round these 
dread chambers are heating, white hot — and cooling — 
and filling — and emptying — and being bricked up — 
and broken open — humanly speaking, for ever and ever ? 
To be sure you did ! And standing in one of those Kilns 
nearly full, and seeing a free crow shoot across the aper- 
ture a-top, and learning how the fire would wax hotter 
and hotter by slow degrees, and would cool similarly 
through a space of from forty to sixty hours, did no re- 
membrance of the days when human clay was burnt 
oppress you ? Yes, I think so ! I suspect that some 
fancy of a fiery haze and a shortening breath, and a grow- 
ing heat, and a gasping prayer ; and a figure in black 
interposing between you and the sky (as figures in black 
are very apt to do), and looking down, before it grew toe 
hot to look and live, upon the Heretic in his edifying 
agony — I say I suspect (says the plate) that some such 
fancy was pretty strong upon you when you went out 
into the air, and blessed God for the bright spring day 
and the degenerate times ! 

After that, I needn’t remind you what a relief it was 
to see the simplest process of ornamenting this “ biscuit ” 
(as it is called when baked) with brown circles and 
blue trees — converting it into the common crockery- 
ware that is exported to Africa, and used in cottages at 
home. For (says the plate) I am well persuaded that 
you bear in mind how those particular jugs and mugs 


280 


A PLATED ARTICLE. 


were once more set upon a lathe and put in motion ; and 
how a man blew the brown color (having a strong natu- 
ral affinity with the material in that condition) on them 
from a blow-pipe as they twirled ; and how his daughter, 
with a common brush, dropped blotches of blue upon 
them in the right places ; and how, tilting the blotches 
upside down, she made them run into rude images of 
trees, and there an end. 

And didn’t you see (says the plate) planted upon my 
own brother that astounding blue willow, with knobbed 
and gnarled trunk, and foliage of blue ostrich feathers, 
which gives our family the title of “willow pattern?” 
And didn’t you observe, transferred upon him at the 
same time, that blue bridge which spans nothing, grow- 
ing out from the roots of the willow ; and the three blue 
Chinese going over it into a blue temple, which has a fine 
crop of blue bushes sprouting out of the roof ; and a blue 
boat sailing above them, the mast of which is burgla- 
riously sticking itself into the foundations of a blue villa, 
suspended sky-high, surmounted by a ump of blue rock, 
sky-higher, and a couple of billing blue birds, sky-highest 
— together with the rest of that amusing blue landscape, 
which has, in deference to our revered ancestors of the 
Cerulean Empire, and in defiance of every known law 
of perspective, adorned millions of our family ever since 
the days of platters ? Didn’t you inspect the copper- 
plate on which my pattern was deeply engraved? 
Didn’t you perceive an impression of it taken in cobalt 
color at a cylindrical press, upon a leaf of thin paper, 
streaming from a plunge-bath of soap and water ? 
Wasn’t the paper impression daintily spread, by a light- 
fingered damsel (you know you admired her !), over the 
surface of the plate, and the back of the paper rubbed 


A PLATED ARTICLE. 


281 


prodigiously hard — with a long tight roll of flannel, tied 
up like a round of hung beef — without so much as 
ruffling the paper, wet as it was ? Then (says the plate), 
was not the paper washed away with a sponge, and didn’t 
there appear, set off upon the plate, this identical piece 
of Pre-Raphaelite blue distemper which you now be- 
hold ? Not to be denied ! I had seen all this — and 
more. I had been shown, at Copeland’s, patterns of 
beautiful design, in faultless perspective, which are caus- 
ing the ugly old willow to wither out of public favor ; 
and which, being quite as cheap, insinuate good whole- 
some natural art into the humblest households. When 
Mr. and Mrs. Sprat have satisfied their material tastes 
by that equal division of fat and lean which has made 
their menage immortal ; and have, after the elegant tra- 
dition, u licked the platter clean,” they can — thanks to 
modern artists in clay — feast their intellectual tastes 
upon excellent delineations of natural objects. 

This reflection prompts me to transfer my attention 
from the blue plate to the forlorn but cheerfully painted 
vase on the sideboard. And surely (says the plate) you 
have not forgotten how the outlines of such groups of 
flowers as you see there, are printed, just as I w r as print- 
ed, and are afterwards shaded and filled in with metallic 
colors by women and girls ? As to the aristocracy of 
our order, made of the finer clay — porcelain peers and 
eeresses ; — the slabs, and panels, and table tops, and 
tazze ; the endless nobility and gentry of dessert, break- 
fast, and tea services ; the gemmed perfume bottles, and 
scarlet and gold salvers ; you saw that they were painted 
by artists, with metallic colors laid on with camel-hair 
pencils, and afterwards burnt in. 

And talking of burning in (says the plate), didn’t you 


282 


A PLATED ARTICLE. 


find that every subject, from the willow-pattern to the 
landscape after Turner — having been framed upon clay 
or porcelain biscuit — has to be glazed ? Of course, you 
saw the glaze — composed of various vitreous materials 
— laid over every article ; and of course you witnessed 
the close imprisonment of each piece in saggers upon the 
separate system rigidly enforced by means of fine-pointed 
earthenware stilts placed between the articles to prevent 
the slightest communication or contact. We had in my 
time — and I suppose it is the same now — fourteen 
hours firing to fix the glaze and to make it “ run ” all 
over us equally, so as to put a good shiny and unscratch- 
able surface upon us. Doubtless, you observed that one 
sort of glaze — called printing-body — is burnt into the 
better sort of ware before it is printed. Upon this you 
saw some of the finest steel engravings transferred, to be 
fixed by an after-glazing — didn’t you ? Why, of course 
you did 3 

Of course I did. I had seen and enjoyed everything 
that the plate recalled to me, and had beheld with admi- 
ration how the rotatory motion which keeps this ball of 
ours in its place in the great scheme, with all its busy 
mites upon it, was necessary throughout the process, and 
could only be dispensed with in the fire. So, listening 
to the plate’s reminders, and musing upon them, I got 
through the evening after all, and went to bed. I made 
but one sleep of it — for which I have no doubt I am 
also indebted to the plate — and left the lonely Dodc 
in the morning, quite at peace with it, before the bandy- 
legged baby was up. 


OUR HONORABLE FRIEND. 


- — ♦ 

We are delighted to find that he has got in ! Oui 
honorable friend is triumphantly returned to serve in the 
next Parliament. He is the honorable member for Ver- 
bosity — the best represented place in England. 

Our honorable friend has issued an address of congrat- 
ulation to the Electors, which is worthy of that noble 
constituency, and is a very pretty piece of composition. 
In electing him, he says, they have covered themselves 
with glory, and England has been true to herself. (In 
his preliminary address he had remarked, in a poetical 
quotation of great rarity, that nought could make us rue, 
if England to herself did prove but true.) 

Our honorable friend delivers a prediction, in the same 
document, that the feeble minions of a faction will never 
hold up their heads any more ; and that the finger of 
scorn will point at them in their dejected state, through 
countless ages of time. Further, that the hireling tools 
that would destroy the sacred bulwarks of our nationality 
are unworthy of the name of Englishmen ; and that so 
long as the sea shall roll around our ocean-girded isle, so 
long his motto shall be, No Surrender. Certain dogged 
persons of low principles and no intellect, have disputed 
whether anybody knows who the minions are, or what 
the faction is, or which are the hireling tools and which 


284 


OUR HONORABLE FRIEND. 


the sacred bulwarks, or what it is that is never to be sur- 
rendered, and if not, why not ? But, our honorable 
friend the member for Verbosity knows all about it. 

Our honorable friend has sat in several parliaments, 
and given bushels of votes. He is a man of that profun- 
dity in the matter of vote-giving, that you never know 
what he means. When he seems to be voting pure white, 
he may be in reality voting jet black. When he says 
Yes, it is just as likely as not — or rather more so — 
that he means No. This is the statesmanship of our hon- 
orable friend. It is in this, that he differs from mere un- 
parliamentary men. You may not know what he meant 
then, or what he means now ; but, our honorable friend 
knows, and did from the first know, both what he meant 
then, and what he means now ; and when he said he 
didn’t mean it then, he did in fact say, that he means it 
now. And if you mean to say that you did not then, and 
do not now, know what he did mean then, or does mean 
now, our honorable friend will be glad to receive an ex ■ 
plicit declaration from you whether you are prepared to 
destroy the sacred bulwarks of our nationality. 

Our honorable friend, the member for Verbosity, has 
this great attribute, that he always means something, and 
always means the same thing. When he came down to 
that House and mournfully boasted in his place, as an in- 
dividual member of the assembled Commons of this great 
and happy country, that he could lay his hand upon his 
heart, and solemnly declare that no consideration on earth 
should induce him, at any time or under any circum- 
stances, to go as far north as Berwick-upon-Tweed ; and 
when he nevertheless, next year, did go to Berwick-upon- 
Tweed, and even beyond it, to Edinburgh ; he had one 
single meaning, one and indivisible. And God forbid 


OUR HONORABLE FRIEND. 


285 


(our honorable friend says) that he should waste another 
argument upon the man who professes that he cannot un- 
derstand it ! “I do not, gentlemen,” said our honorable 
friend, with indignant emphasis and amid great cheering, 
on one such public occasion. “ I do not, gentlemen, I 
am free to confess, envy the feelings of that man whose 
mind is so constituted as that he can hold such language 
to me, and yet lay his head upon his pillow, claiming to 
be a native of that land, 

Whose march is o’er the mountain-wave 

Whose home is on the deep ! 

(Vehement cheering, and man expelled.) 

When our honorable friend issued his preliminary ad- 
dress to the constituent body of Verbosity on the occasion 
of one particular glorious triumph, it was supposed by 
some of his enemies, that even he would be placed in a 
situation of difficulty by the following comparatively tri- 
fling conjunction of circumstances. The dozen noblemen 
and gentlemen whom our honorable friend supported, had 
“ come in ” expressly to do a certain thing. Now, four 
of the dozen said, at a certain place, that they didn’t 
mean to do that thing, and had never meant to do it ; 
another four of the dozen said, at another certain place, 
that they did mean to do that thing, and had always meant 
to do it ; two of the remaining four said, at two other cer- 
tain places, that they meant to do half of that thing (but 
differed about which half), and to do a variety of name- 
ess winders instead of the other half ; and one of the 

remaining two declared that the thing itself was dead 
© © 

and buried, while the other as strenuously protested that 
it was alive and kicking. It was admitted that the par- 
liamentary genius of our honorable friend would be quite 
able to reconcile such small discrepancies as these ; but. 


286 


OUR HONORABLE ERIEN1). 


there remained the additional difficulty that each of the 
twelve made entirely different statements at different 
places, and that all th 3 twelve called everything visible 
and invisible, sacred and profane, to witness, that they 
were a perfectly impregnable phalanx of unanimity - 
This, it was apprehended, would be a stumbling-block to 
our honorable friend. 

The difficulty came before our honorable friend, in this 
way. He went down to Verbosity to meet his free and 
independent constituents, and to render an account (as he 
informed them in the local papers) of the trust they had 
confided to his hands — that trust which it was one of the 
proudest privileges of an Englishman to possess — that 
trust which it was the proudest privilege of an Englishman 
to hold. It may be mentioned as a proof of the great gen- 
eral interest attaching to the contest, that a Lunatic whom 
nobody employed or knew, went down to Verbosity with 
several thousand pounds in gold, determined to give the 
whole away — which he actually did ; and that all the 
publicans opened their houses for nothing. Likewise, 
several fighting-men, and a patriotic group of burglars 
sportively armed with life-preservers, proceeded (in ba- 
rouches and very drunk) to the scene of action at their 
own expense ; these children of nature having conceived 
a warm attachment to our honorable friend, and intend- 
ing, in their artless manner, to testify it by knocking the 
voters in the opposite interest on the head. 

Our honorable friend being come into the presence of 
his constituents, and having professed with great suavity 
that he was delighted to see his good friend Tipkisson 
there, in his 'working-dress — his good friend Tipkisson 
being an inveterate saddler, who always opposes him, 
and for whom he has a mortal hatred — made them ft 


OUR HONORABLE FRIEND. 


287 


brisk, ginger-beery sort of speech, in which he showed 
them how the dozen noblemen and gentlemen had (in 
exactly ten days from their coming in) exercised a sur- 
prisingly beneficial effect on the whole financial condition 
of Europe, had altered the state of the exports and im- 
ports for the current half-year, had prevented the drain 
of gold, had made all that matter right about the glut of 
the raw material, and had restored all sorts of balances 
with which the superseded noblemen and gentlemen had 
played the deuce — and all this, with wheat at so much 
a quarter, gold at so much an ounce, and the Bank of 
England discounting good bills at so much per cent. ! He 
might be asked, he observed in a peroration of great 
power, what were his principles? His principles were 
what they always had been. His principles were writ- 
ten in the countenances of the lion and unicorn ; were 
stamped indelibly upon the royal shield which those 
grand animals supported, and upon the free words of fire 
which that shield bore. His principles were, Britannia 
and her sea-king trident ! His principles were, commer- 
cial prosperity coexistently with perfect and profound 
agricultural contentment ; but short of this he would 
never stop. His principles were, these, — with the addi- 
tion of his colors nailed to the mast, every man’s heart in 
the right place, every man’s eye open, every man’s hand 
ready, every man’s mind on the alert. His principles 
were these, concurrently with a general revision of some- 
thing — speaking generally — and a possible re-adjust- 
ment of something else, not to be mentioned more par- 
ticularly. His principles, to sum up all in a word were, 
Hearths and Altars, Labor and Capital, Crown and 
Sceptre, Elephant and Castle. And now, if his good 
friend Tipkisson required any further explanation from 


288 


OUR HONORABLE FRIEND. 


him he (our honorable friend) was there, willing and 
ready to give it. 

Tipkisson, who all this time had stood conspicuous in 
the crowd, with his arms folded and his eyes intently fast- 
ened on our honorable friend : Tipkisson, who through- 
out our honorable friend’s address had not relaxed a 
muscle of his visage, but had stood there, 'wholly unaf- 
fected by the torrent of eloquence : an object of con- 
tempt and scorn to mankind (by which we mean, of 
course, to the supporters of our honorable friend) ; Tip- 
kisson now said that he was a plain man (Cries of “You 
are indeed!”), and that what he wanted to know was, 
what our honorable friend and the dozen noblemen and 
gentlemen were driving at? 

Our honorable friend immediately replied, “ At the 
illimitable perspective.” 

It was considered by the whole assembly that this 
happy statement of our honorable friend’s political views 
ought, immediately, to have settled Tipkisson’s business 
and covered him with confusion ; but, that implacable 
person, regardless of the execrations that were heaped 
upon hini from all sides (by which we mean, of course, 
from our honorable friend’s side), persisted in retaining 
an unmoved countenance, and obstinately retorted that 
if our honorable friend meant that, he wished to know 
what that meant ? 

It was in repelling this most objectionable and inde- 
cent opposition, that our honorable friend displayed his 
highest qualifications for the representation of Verbosity. 
His warmest supporters present, and those who were 
best acquainted with his generalship, supposed that the 
moment was come when he would fall back upon the 
sacred bulwarks of our nationality. No such thing. He 


OUR HONORABLE FRIEND. 


28 ( j 

replied thus : “ My good friend Tipkisson, gentlemen, 
wishes to know what I mean when he asks me what we 
are driving at, and when I candidly tell him, at the 
illimitable perspective. He wishes (if I understand 
him) to know what I mean ? ” “ I do ! ” says Tipkis- 

son, amid cries of “ Shame ” and “ Down with him ” 
“ Gentlemen,” says our honorable friend, “ I will indulge 
my good friend Tipkisson, by telling him, both what I 
mean and what I don’t mean. (Cheers and cries of 
“ Give it him ! ”) Be it known to him then, and to all 
whom it may concern, that I do mean altars, hearths, 
and homes, and that I don’t mean mosques and Mahom- 
medanism ! ” The effect of this home-thrust was ter- 
rific. Tipkisson (who is a Baptist) was hooted down 
and hustled out, and has ever since been regarded as a 
Turkish Renegade who contemplates an early pilgrimage 
to Mecca. Nor was he the only discomfited man. The 
charge, while it stuck to him, was magically transferred 
to our honorable friend’s opponent, who was represented 
in an immense variety of placards as a firm believer in 
Mahomet; and the men of Verbosity were asked to 
choose between our honorable friend and the Bible, 
and our honorable friend’s opponent and the Koran. 
They decided for our honorable friend, and rallied round 
the illimitable perspective. 

It has been claimed for our honorable friend, with 
much appearance of reason, that he was the first to bend 
sacred matters to electioneering tactics. However this 
may be, the fine precedent was undoubtedly set in u 
Verbosity election : and it is certain that our honorable 
friend (who was a disciple of Brahma in his youth, and 
was a Buddhist when he had the honor of travelling 
with him a few years ago), always professes in public 

VOL. II. 19 


290 


OUR HONORABLE FRIEND. 


more anxiety than the whole Bench of Bishops, regard- 
ing the theological and doxological opinions of every 
man, woman, and child, in the United Kingdom. 

As we began by saying that our honorable friend has 
got in again at this last election, and that we are de~ 
lighted to find that he has got in, no we will conclude. 
Our honorable friend cannot come in for Verbosity too 
often. It is a good sign ; it is a great example. It is 
to men like our honorable friend, and to contests like 
those from which he comes triumphant, that we are 
mainly indebted for that ready interest in politics, that 
fresh enthusiasm in the discharge of the duties of citizen- 
ship, that ardent desire to rush to the poll, at present so 
manifest throughout England. When the contest lies 
(as it sometimes does) between two such men as our 
honorable friend, it stimulates the finest emotions of our 
nature, and awakens the highest admiration of which 
our heads and hearts are capable. 

It is not too much to predict that our honorable friend 
will be always at his post in the ensuing session. What- 
ever the question be, or whatever the form of its discus- 
sion ; address to the crown, election-petition, expenditure 
of the public money, extension of the public suffrage, 
education, crime ; in the whole house, in committee of 
the whole house, in select committee ; in every parlia- 
mentary discussion of every subject, everywhere : the 
Honorable Member for Verbosity will most certainly 
be found. 




OUR SCHOOL. 


♦— 

We went to look at it, only this last Midsummer, and 
found that the Railway had cut it up root and branch. 
A great trunk-line had swallowed the play-ground, sliced 
away the schoolroom, and pared off the corner of the 
house : which, thus curtailed of its proportions, presented 
itself, in a green stage of stucco, profile wise towards the 
road, like a forlorn flat-iron without a handle, standing 
on end. 

It seems as if our schools were doomed to be the sport 
of change. We have faint recollections of a Prepara- 
tory Day-School, which we have sought in vain, and 
which must have been pulled down to make a new street, 
ages ago. We have dim impressions, scarcely amount- 
ing to a belief, that it was over a dyer’s shop. We know 
that you went up steps to it ; that you frequently grazed 
your knees in doing so ; that you generally got your leg 
over the scraper, in trying to scrape the mud off a very 
unsteady little shoe. The mistress of the Establishment 
holds no place in our memory ; but, rampant on one 
eternal door-mat, in an eternal entry long and narrow^, 
is a puffy pug-dog, with a personal animosity towards us, 
who triumphs over Time. The bark of that baleful Pug, 
a certain radiating way he had of snapping at our unde- 
fended legs, the ghastly grinning of his moist black 


292 


OUR SCHOOL. 


\ 


muzzle and white teeth, and the insolence of his crisp 
tail curled like a pastoral crook, all live and flourish 
From an otherwise unaccountable association of him 
with a fiddle, we conclude that he was of French extrac- 
tion, and his name Fidele . He belonged to some female, 
chiefly inhabiting a back-parlor, whose life appears to us 
to have been consumed in sniffing, and in wearing a 
brown beaver bonnet. For her, he would sit up and 
balance cake upon his nose, and not eat it until twenty 
had been counted. To the best of our belief we were 
once called in to witness this performance ; when, unable, 
even in his milder moments, to endure our presence, he 
instantly made at us, cake and all. 

Why a something in mourning, called “Miss Frost,” 
should still connect itself with our preparatory school, 
we are unable to say. We retain no impression of the 
beauty of Miss Frost — if she were beautiful ; or of the 
mental fascinations of Miss Frost — if she were accom- 
plished ; yet her name and her black dress hold an en- 
during place in our remembrance. An equally impersonal 
boy, whose name has long since shaped itself unalterably 
into “ Master Mawls,” is not to be dislodged from our 
brain. Retaining no vindictive feelings towards Mawls 
— no feeling whatever, indeed — we infer that neither 
he nor we can have loved Miss Frost. Our first impres- 
sion of Death and Burial is associated with this form 
less pair. We all three nestled awfully in a corner one 
wintry day, when the wind was blowing shrill, with Miss 
Frost’s pinafore over our heads; and Miss Frost told us 
in a whisper about somebody being “ screwed down.” It 
is the only distinct recollection we preserve of these 
impalpable creatures, except a suspicion that the man- 
ners of Master Mawls were susceptible of much improve- 


OUR SCHOOL. 


293 


ment. Generally speaking, we may observe that when- 
ever we see a child intently occupied with its nose, to the 
exclusion of all other subjects of interest, our mind re- 
verts, in a flash to Master Mawls. 

But, the School that was Our School before the Bail- 
road came and overthrew it, was quite another sort of 
place. We were old enough to be put into Virgil when, 
we went there, and to get Prizes for a variety of polish- 
ing on which the dust has long accumulated. It was a 
School of some celebrity in its neighborhood — nobody 
could have said why — and we had the honor to attain 
and hold the eminent position of first boy. The master 
was supposed among us to know nothing, and one of the 
ushers was supposed to know everything. We are still 
inclined to think the first-named supposition perfectly 
correct. 

We have a general idea that its subject had been in 
the leather trade, and had bought us — meaning Our 
School — of another proprietor, who was immensely 
learned. Whether this belief had any real foundation, 
we are not likely ever to know now. The only branches 
of education with which he showed the least acquaint- 
ance, were, ruling and corporally punishing. He was 
always ruling ciphering-books with a bloated mahogany 
ruler, or smiting the palms of offenders with the same 
diabolical instrument, or viciously drawing a pair of 
pantaloons tight with one of his large hands, and caning 
the wearer with the other. We have no doubt whatever 
that this occupation was the principal solace of his exist- 
ence. 

A profound respect for money pervaded Our School, 
which was of course derived from its Chief. We re- 
member an idiotic goggled-eyed boy, with a big head 


294 


OUR SCHOOL. 


\ 


and half-crowns without end, who suddenly appeared as 
a parlor-boarder, and was rumored to have come by sea 
from some mysterious part of the earth where his parents 
rolled in gold. He was usually called “Mr.” by the 
Chief, and was said to feed in the parlor on steaks and 
gravy ; likewise to drink currant wine. And he openly 
stated that if rolls and coffee were ever denied him at 
breakfast, he would write home to that unknown part of 
the globe from which he had come, and cause himself to 
be recalled to the regions of gold. He was put into no 
form or class, but learnt alone, as little as he liked — 
and he liked very little — and there was a belief among 
us that this was because he was too wealthy to be “ taken 
down.” His special treatment, and our vague associa- 
tion of him with the sea, and with storms, and sharks, 
and Coral Reefs occasioned the wildest legends to be 
circulated as his history. A tragedy in blank verse was 
written on the subject — if our memory does not deceive 
us, by the hand that now chronicles these recollections — 
in which his father figured as a Pirate, and was shot for 
a voluminous catalogue of atrocities : first imparting to 
his wife the secret of the cave in which his wealth was 
stored, and from which his only son’s half-crowns now 
issued. Dumbledon (the boy’s name) was represented 
as “ yet unborn ” when his brave father met his fate ; 
and the despair and grief of Mrs. Dumbledon at that 
calamity was movingly shadowed forth as having weak- 
ened the parlor-boarder’s mind. This production was 
received with great favor, and was twice performed with 
dosed doors in the dining-room. But, it got wind, and 
was seized as libellous, and brought the unlucky poet 
into severe affliction. Some two years afterwards, all of 
a sudden one day. Dumbledon vanished. It was whis- 


OUR SCHOOL. 


295 


pered that the Chief himself had taken him down to the 
Docks, and re-shipped him for the Spanish Main ; hut 
nothing certain was ever known about his disappearance. 
At this hour we cannot thoroughly disconnect him from 
California. 

Our School was rather famous for mysterious pupils. 
There was another — a heavy young man, with a large 
double-cased silver watch, and a fat knife the handle of 
which was a perfect tool-box — who unaccountably ap- 
peared one day at a special desk of his own, erected 
close to that of the Chief, with whom he held familiar 
converse. He lived in the parlor, and went out for walks, 
and never took the least notice of us — even of us, the 
first boy — unless to give us a depreciatory kick, or 
grimly take our hat off and throw it away, when he 
encountered us out of doors, which unpleasant ceremony 
he always performed as he passed — not even conde- 
scending to stop for the purpose. Some of us believed 
that the classical attainments of this phenomenon were 
terrific, but that his penmanship and arithmetic were 
defective, and he had come there to mend them ; others, 
that he was going to set up a school, and had paid the 
Chief 66 twenty-five pound down,” for leave to see Our 
School at work. The gloomier spirits even said that he was 
going to buy us ; against which contingency, conspiracies 
were^set on foot for a general defection and running away. 
However, he never did that. After staying for a quar- 
ter, during which period, though closely observed, he was 
never seen to do anything but make pens out of quills, 
write small-hand in a secret portfolio, and punch the 
point of the sharpest blade in his knife into his desk 
all over it, he too disappeared, and his place knew him 
no more. 


296 


OUR SCHOOL. 


There was another boy, a fair, meek boy, with a deli- 
cate complexion and rich curling hair, who, we found 
out, or thought we found out (we have no hjea now, and 
probably had none then, on what grounds, but it was con- 
fidentially revealed from mouth to mouth), was the son of 
a Viscount who had deserted his lovely mother. It w r as 
understood that if he had his rights, he would be worth 
twenty thousand a year. And that if his mother ever met 
his father, she would shoot him with a silver pistol, which 
she carried, always loaded to the muzzle, for that purpose. 
He was a very suggestive topic. So was a young Mulatto, 
who was always believed (though very amiable) to have a 
dagger about him somewhere. But, we think they were 
both outshone, upon the whole, by another boy who 
claimed to have been born on the twenty-ninth of Feb- 
ruary, and to have only one birthday in five years. We 
suspect this to have been a fiction — but he lived upon 
it all the time he was at Our School. 

The principal currency of Our School was slate-pencil. 
It had some inexplicable value, that was never ascer- 
tained, never reduced to a standard. To have a great 
hoard of it, was somehow to be rich. We used to bestow 
it in charity, and confer it as a precious boon upon our 
chosen friends. When the holidays were coming, con- 
tributions were solicited for certain boys whose relatives 
were in India, and who were appealed for under the 
generic name of “ Holiday-stoppers,” — appropriate 
marks of remembrance that should enliven and cheer 
them in their homeless state. Personally, we always 
contributed these tokens of sympathy in the form of 
slate-pencil, and always felt that it would be a comfort 
and a treasure to them. 

Our School was remarkable for white mice. Ked- 


OUR SCHOOL. 


297 


polls, linnets, and even canaries, were kept in desks, 
drawers, hat-boxes, and other strange refuges for birds ; 
but white mice were the favorite stock. The boys 
trained the mice, much better than the masters trained 
the boys. We recall one white mouse, who lived in the 
cover of a Latin dictionary, who ran up ladders, drew 
Roman chariots, shouldered muskets, turned wheels, and 
even made a very creditable appearance on the stage as 
the Dog of Montargis. He might have achieved greater 
things, but for having the misfortune to mistake his way 
in a triumphal procession to the Capitol, when he fell 
into a deep inkstand, and was dyed black and drowned. 
The mice were the occasion of some most ingenious en- 
gineering, in the construction of their houses and instru- 
ments of performance. The famous one belonged to a 
Company of proprietors, some of whom have since made 
Railroads, Engines, and Telegraphs ; the chairman has 
erected mills and bridges in New 7 Zealand. 

The usher at Our School, w r ho was considered to know 
everything as opposed to the Chief, w r ho was considered 
to know nothing, was a bony, gentle-faced, clerical-look- 
ing young man in rusty black. It was whispered that 
he w 7 as sw 7 eet upon one of Maxby’s sisters (Maxby lived 
close by, and was a day pupil), and further that he “ fa- 
vored Maxby.’’ As we remember, he taught Italian to 
Maxby’s sisters on half-holidays. He once w 7 ent to the 
play with them, and wore a white waistcoat and a rose : 
which was considered among us equivalent to a declara- 
tion. We were of opinion on that occasion, that to the 
last moment he expected Maxby’s father to ask him to 
dinner at five o’clock, and therefore neglected his ow r n 
dinner at half past one, and finally got none. We ex- 
aggerated in our imaginations the extent to which he 


298 


OUR SCHOOL. 


punished Maxby’s father’s cold meat at supper; and we 
agreed to believe that he was elevated with wine and 
water when he came home. But, we all liked him ; for 
he had a good knowledge of boys, and would have made 
it a much better school if he had had more power. He 
was writing-master, mathematical master, English mas- 
ter, made out the bills, mended the pens, and did all 
sorts of things. He divided the little boys with the 
Latin master (they were smuggled through their rudi- 
mentary books, at odd times when there was nothing 
else to do), and he always called at parents’ houses to 
inquire after sick boys, because he had gentlemanly man- 
ners. He was rather musical, and on some remote quar- 
ter-day had bought an old trombone ; but a bit of it was 
lost, and it made the most extraordinary sounds when he 
sometimes tried to play it of an evening. His holidays 
never began (on account of the bills) until long after 
ours ; but, in the summer vacations he used to take 
pedestrian excursions with a knapsack ; and at Christ- 
mas-time, he went to see his father at Chipping Norton, 
who we all said (on no authority) was a dairy-fed-pork- 
butcher. Poor fellow ! He was very low all day on 
Maxby’s sister’s wedding-day, and afterwards was thought 
to favor Maxby more than ever, though he had been ex- 
pected to spite him. He has been dead these twenty 
years. Poor fellow ! 

Our remembrance of Our School, presents the Latin 
master as a colorless doubled-up near-sighted man with a 
crutch, who was always cold, and always putting onions 
into his ears for deafness, and always disclosing ends of 
flannel under all his garments, and almost always apply- 
ing a ball of pocket-handkerchief to some part of his 
face with a screwing action round and round. He was 


OUR SCHOOL. 


299 


a very good scholar, and took great pains where he saw 
intelligence and a desire to learn: otherwise, perhaps 
not. Our memory presents him (unless teased into a 
passion) with as little energy as color — as having been 
worried and tormented into monotonous feebleness — as 
having had the best part of his life ground out of him in 
a Mill of boys. We remember with terror how he fell 
asleep one sultry afternoon with the little smuggled class 
before him, and awoke not when the footstep of the 
Chief fell heavy on the floor; how the Chief aroused 
him, in the midst of a dread silence, and said, “ Mr. 
Blinkins, are you ill, sir ? ” how he blushingly replied, 
“ Sir, rather so ; ” how the Chief retorted with severity, 
“ Mr. Blinkins, this is no place to be ill in ” (which was 
very, very true), and walked back, solemn as the ghost 
in Hamlet, until, catching a wandering eye, he caned that 
boy for inattention, and happily expressed his feelings 
towards the Latin master through the medium of a sub- 
stitute. 

There was a fat little dancing-master who used to come 
in a gig, and taught the more advanced among us horn- 
pipes (as an accomplishment in great social demand in 
after-life) ; and there was a brisk little French master 
who used to come in the sunniest weather, with a handle- 
less umbrella, and to whom the Chief was always polite, 
because (as we believed), if the Chief offended him, he 
would instantly address the Chief in French, and for- 
ever confound him before the boys with his inability to 
understand or reply. 

There was besides, a serving man, whose name was 
Phil. Our retrospective glance presents Phil as a ship- 
wrecked carpenter, cast away upon the desert island of 
a school, and carrying into practice an ingenious inkling 


BOO 


OUR SCHOOL. 


of many trades. He mended whatever was broken, and 
made whatever was wanted. He was general glazier, 
among other things, and mended all the broken windows 

— at the prime cost (as was darkly rumored among 
us) of ninepence, for every square charged three and 
six to parents. We had a high opinion of his me- 
chanical genius, and generally held that the Chief 
“ knew something bad of him,” and on pain of divul 
gence enforced Phil to be his bondsman. We par- 
ticularly remember that Phil had a sovereign con- 
tempt for learning : which engenders in us a respect for 
his sagacity, as it implies his accurate observation of 
the relative positions of the Chief and the ushers. 
He was an impenetrable man, who waited at table 
between whiles, and throughout “the half” kept the 
boxes in severe custody. He was morose, even to 
the Chief, and never smiled, except at breaking-up, 
when, in acknowledgment of the toast, “ Success to 
Phil ! Hooray ! ” he would slowly carve a grin out 
of his wooden face, where it would remain until we 
w r ere all gone. Nevertheless, one time when we had 
the scarlet fever in the school, Phil nursed all the 
sick boys of his own accord, and was like a mother 
to them. 

There was another school not far off, and of course 
Our School could have nothing to say to that school. 
It is mostly the way with schools, whether of boys or 
men. Well ! the railway has swallowed up ours, and 
the locomotives now run smoothly over its ashes. 

So fades and languishes, grows dim and dies, 

All that this world is proud of, 

— and is not proud of, too. It had little reason to be 
proud of Our School, and has done much better since in 
that way, and will do far better yet. 


OUR VESTRY. 


4 

We have the glorious privilege of being always in hoi 
water if we like. We are a shareholder in a Great 
Parochial British Joint Stock Bank of Balderdash. We 
have a Vestry in our borough, and can vote for a vestry- 
man — * might even be a vestryman, mayhap, if we were 
inspired by a lofty and noble ambition. Which we are 
not. 

Our Vestry is a deliberative assembly of the utmost 
dignity and importance. Like the Senate of ancient 
Pome, its awful gravity overpowers (or ought to over- 
power) barbarian visitors. It sits in the Capitol (we 
mean in the capital building erected for it), chiefly on 
Saturdays, and shakes the earth to its centre with the 
echoes of its thundering eloquence, in a Sunday paper. 

To get into this Vestry in the eminent capacity of 
Vestryman, gigantic efforts are made, and Herculean 
exertions used. It is made manifest to the dullest ca- 
pacity at every election, that if we reject Snozzle we are 
done for, and that if we fail to bring in Blunderbooze at 
the top of the poll, we are unworthy of the dearest 
rights of Britons. Flaming placards are rife on all the 
dead walls in the borough, public-houses hang out ban- 
ners, hackney -cabs burst into full-grown flowers of 
type, and everybody is, or should be, in a paroxysm of 
anxiety* 


302 


OUR VESTRY. 


At these momentous crises of the national fate, we are 
much assisted in our deliberations by two eminent volun- 
teers ; one of whom subscribes himself A Fellow Par- 
ishioner, the other, A Pate-Payer. Who they are, or 
what they are, or where they are, nobody knows ; but, 
whatever one asserts, the other contradicts. They are 
both voluminous writers, inditing more epistles than Lord 
Chesterfield in a single week ; and the greater part of 
their feelings are too big for utterance in anything less 
than capital letters. They require the additional aid of 
whole rows of notes of admiration, like balloons, to point 
their generous indignation ; and they sometimes com- 
municate a crushing severity to stars. As thus : 

MEN OF MOONEYMOUNT. 

Is it, or is it not, a * * * to saddle the parish with a 
debt of £2,745 6s. 9 d., yet claim to be a rigid econo- 
mist ? 

Is it, or is it not, a * * * to state as a fact what is 
proved to be both a moral and a physical impossi- 
bility ? 

Is it, or is it not, a * * * to call £2,745 6s. 9 d. noth- 
ing ; and nothing, something ? 

Do you, or do you not , want a * * * * to repre- 
sent you in the Vestry? 

Your consideration of these questions is recommended 
(o you by 

A Fellow Parishioner. 

It was to this important public document that one of 
our first orators, Mr. Magg (of Little Winkling Street), 
adverted, when he opened the great debate of the four- 
teenth of November by saying, “ Sir, I hold in my hand 


OUR VESTRY. 


303 


an anonymous slander” — and when the interruption, 
with which he was at that point assailed by the opposite 
faction, gave rise to that memorable discussion on a point 
of order which will ever be remembered with interest by 
constitutional assemblies. In the animated debate to 
which we refer, no fewer than thirty-seven gentlemen 
many of them of great eminence, including Mr. Wigsbv 
(of Chumbledon Square), were seen upon their legs at 
one time ; and it was on the same great occasion that 
Dogginson — regarded in our Vestry as “ a regular 
John Bull : ” we believe, in consequence of his having 
always made up his mind on every subject without 
knowing anything about it — informed another gentle- 
man of similar principles on the opposite side, that if he 
“ check’d him,” he would resort to the extreme, measure 
of knocking his blessed head off. 

This was a great occasion. But, our Vestry shines 
habitually. In asserting its own preeminence, for in- 
stance, it is very strong. On the least provocation, or 
on none, it will be clamorous to know whether it is to be 
“ dictated to,” or “ trampled on,” or “ ridden over rough' 
shod.” Its great watchword is Self-government. That 
is to say, supposing our Vestry to favor any little harm- 
less disorder like Typhus Fever, and supposing the Gov- 
ernment of the country to be, by any accident, in such 
ridiculous hands, as that any of its authorities should con- 
sider it a duty to object to Typhus Fever — obviously 
an unconstitutional objection — then, our Vestry cuts in 
with a terrible manifesto about Self-government, and 
claims its independent right to have as much Typhus 
Fever as pleases itself. Some absurd and dangerous 
persons have represented, on the other hand, that though 
our Vestry m?y be able to “ beat the bounds ” of its own 


304 


OUR VESTRY. 


parish, it may :x>t be able to beat the bounds of its own 
diseases ; which (say they) spread over the whole land, 
m an ever-expanding circle of waste, and misery, and 
death, and widowhood, and orphanage, and desolation. 
But, our Vestry makes short work of any such fellows 
as these. 

It was our Vestry — pink of Vestries as it is — that 
in support of its favorite principle took the celebrated 
ground of denying the existence of the last pestilence 
that raged in England, when the pestilence was raging at 
the V estry doors. Dogginson said it was plums ; Mr. 
Wigsby (of Chumbledon Square) said it was oysters ; 
Mr. Magg (of Little Winkling Street) said, amid great 
cheering, it was the newspapers. The noble indignation 
of our Vestry with that un-English institution the Board 
of Health, under those circumstances, yields one of the 
finest passages in its history. It wouldn’t hear of rescue. 
Like Mr. Joseph Miller’s Frenchman, it would be 
drowned and nobody should save it. Transported be- 
yond grammar by its kindled ire, it spoke in unknown 
tongues, and vented unintelligible bellowings, more like 
an ancient oracle than the modern oracle it is admitted 
on all hands to be. Bare exigencies produce rare things ; 
and even our Vestry, new hatched to the woful time, 
came forth a greater goose than ever. 

But this, again, was a special occasion. Our Vestry, 
at more ordinary periods, demands its meed of praise. 

f 

Our Vestry is eminently parliamentary. Playing at 
Parliament is its favorite game. It is even regarded by 
some of its members as a chapel of ease to the House of 
Commons : a Little Go to be passed first. It has its 
strangers’ gallery, and its reported debates (see the Sun- 
day paper before mentioned), and our Vestrymen are in 


305 


OUR VESTRY. 

and out of order, and on and off their legs, and above all 
are transcendently quarrelsome, after the pattern of the 
real original. 

Our Vestry being assembled, Mr. Magg never begs to 
trouble Mr. Wigsby with a simple inquiry. He knows 
better than that. Seeing the honorable gentleman, asso- 
ciated in their minds with Chumbledon Square, in his 
place, he wishes to ask that honorable gentleman what 
the intentions of himself, and those with whom he acts, 
may be, on the subject of the paving of the district 
known as Piggleum Buildings ? Mr. Wigsby replies 
(with his eye on next Sunday’s paper), that in reference 
to the question which has been put to him by the honor- 
able gentleman opposite, he must take leave to say, that 
if that honorable gentleman had had the courtesy to give 
him notice of that question, he (Mr. Wigsby) would have 
consulted with his colleagues in reference to the advisa- 
bility, in the present state of the discussions on the new 
paving-rate, of answering that question. But, as the 
honorable gentleman has not had the courtesy to give him 
notice of that question (great cheering from the Wigsby 
interest), he must decline to give the honorable gentle- 
man the satisfaction he requires. Mr. Magg, instantly 
rising to retort, is received with loud cries of “ Spoke ! ” 
from the Wigsby interest, and with cheers from the Magg 
side of the house. -Moreover, five gentlemen rise tc 
order, and one of them, in revenge for being taken no 
notice of, petrff;es the assembly by moving that thi 
Vestry do now adjourn ; but, is persuaded to withdraw 
that awful proposal, in consideration of its tremendous 
consequences if persevered in. Mr. Magg, for the pur- 
pose of being heard, then begs to move, that you, Sir, do 
now pass to the order of the day ; and takes tha f oppor- 

vol. n. 20 


306 


OUR VESTRY. 


tunity of saying, that if an honorable gentleman whom 
he has in his eye, and will not demean himself by more 
particularly naming (oh, oh, and cheers), supposes that 
he is to be put down by clamor, that honorable gentleman 
— however supported he may be, through thick and thin 
by a Fellow Parishioner, with whom he is well acquaint 
ed (cheers and counter-cheers, Mr. Magg being invariably 
backed by the Rate-Payer) — will find himself mistaken. 
Upon this, twenty members of our Vestry speak in suc- 
cession concerning what the two great men have meant, 
until it appears, after an hour and twenty minutes, that 
neither of them meant anything. Then our Vestry begins 
business. 

We have said that, after the pattern of the real origi- 
nal, our Vestry in playing at Parliament is transcendently 
quarrelsome. It enjoys a personal altercation above all 
things. Perhaps the most redoubtable case of this kind 
we have ever had — though we have had so many that 
it is difficult to decide — was that on which the last 
extreme solemnities passed between Mr. Tiddypot (of 
Gumtion House) and Captain Banger (of Wilderness 
Walk). 

In an adjourned debate on the question whether water 
could bo- regarded in the light of a necessary of life; 
respecting which there were great differences of opinion, 
and many shades of sentiment ; Mr. Tiddypot, in a pow- 
erful burst of eloquence against that hypothesis, fre 
quently made use of the expression that such and sucl 
a rumor had “ reached his ears.” Captain Banger, follow- 
ing him, and holding that, for purposes of ablution and 
refreshment, a pint of water per diem was necessary foi 
every adult of the lower classes, and half a pint for every 
child, cast ridicule upon his address in a sparkling speech , 


OUR VESTRY. 


307 


and concluded by saying that instead of those rumors 
having reached the ears of the honorable gentleman, he 
rather thought the honorable gentleman’s ears must have 
reached the rumors, in consequence of their well-known 
length. Mr. Tiddypot immediately rose, looked the hon- 
orable and gallant gentleman full in the face, and left the 
Vestry. 

The excitement, at this moment painfully intense, was 
heightened to an acute degree when Captain Banger rose, 
and also left the Vestry. After a few moments of pro- 
found silence — one of these breathless pauses never to 
be forgotten — Mr. Chib (of Tucket’s Terrace, and the 
father of the Vestry) rose. He said that words and 
looks had passed in that assembly, replete with conse 
quences which every feeling mind must deplore. Time 
pressed. The sword was drawn, and while he spoke the 
scabbard might be thrown away. He moved that those 
honorable gentlemen who had left the Vestry be recalled, 
and required to pledge themselves upon their honor that 
this affair should go no farther. The motion being by a 
general union of parties unanimously agreed to (for 
everybody wanted to have the belligerents there, instead 
of out of sight : which was no fun at all), Mr. Magg was 
deputed to recover Captain Banger, and Mr. Chib him- 
self to go in search of Mr. Tiddypot. The Captain was 
found in a conspicuous position, surveying the passing 
omnibuses from the top-step of the front-door immediately 
adjoining the beadle’s box ; Mr. Tiddypot made a despe- 
rate attempt at resistance, but was overpowered by Mr. 
Chib (a remarkably hale old gentleman of eighty-two), 
and brought back in safety. 

Mr. Tiddypot and the Captain being restored to their 
nlaces, and glaring on each other, were called upon by 


308 


OUR VESTRY. 


the chair to abandon all homicidal intentions, and give 
the Vestry an assurance that they did so. Mr. Tiddy 
pot remained profoundly silent. The Captain likewise 
remained profoundly silent, saving that he was observed 
by those around him to fold his arms like Napoleon 
Buonaparte, and to snort in his breathing — actions but 
too expressive of gunpowder. 

The most intense emotions now prevailed. Several 
members clustered in remonstrance round the Captain, 
and several round Mr. Tiddypot ; but, both were obdu- 
rate. Mr. Chib then presented himself amid tremen- 
dous cheering, and said, that not to shrink from the dis- 
charge of his painful duty, he must now move that both 
honorable gentlemen be taken into custody by the bea- 
dle, and conveyed to the nearest police-office, there to 
be held to bail. The union of parties still continuing, 
the motion was seconded by Mr. Wigsby — on all usual 
occasions Mr. Chib’s opponent — and rapturously carried 
with only one dissentient voice. This was Doggin- 
son’s, who said from his place “ Let ’em fight it out 
with fistes ; ” but whose coarse remark was received as 
it merited. 

The beadle now advanced along the floor of the Ves- 
try, and beckoned with his cocked hat to both members. 
Every breath was suspended. To say that a pin might 
have been heard to fall, would be feebly to express the 
all-absorbing interest and silence. Suddenly, entliusias 
tic cheering broke out from every side of the Vestry 
Captain Banger had risen — being, in fact, pulled up 
by a friend on either side, and poked up by a friend 
behind. 

The Captain said, in a deep determined voice, that 
he had every respect for that Vestry and every respect 


OUR VESTRY. 


309 


for that chair ; that he also respected the honorable 
gentleman of Gumtion House ; but, that he respected 
his honor more. Hereupon the Captain sat down, leav- 
ing the whole Vestry much affected. Mr. Tiddypot in- 
stantly rose, and was received with the same encourage- 
ment. He likewise said — and the exquisite art of this 
orator communicated to the observation an air of fresh 
ness and novelty — that he too had every respect for 
that Vestry ; that he too had every respect for that 
chair. That he too respected the honorable and gallant 
gentleman of Wilderness Walk ; but, that he too re- 
spected his honor more. “ Hows’ever,” added the dis- 
tinguished Vestryman, “ if the honorable or gallant gen- 
tleman’s honor is never more doubted and damaged than 
it is by me, he’s all right.” Captain Banger immedi- 
ately started up again, and said that after those obser- 
vations, involving as they did ample concession to his 
honor without compromising the honor of the honora- 
ble gentleman, he would be wanting in honor as well 
as in generosity, if he did not at once repudiate all 
intention of wounding the honor of the honorable gen- 
tleman, or saying anything dishonorable to his honor- 
able feelings. These observations were repeatedly in- 
terrupted by bursts of cheers. Mr. Tiddypot retorted 
tli at he well knew the spirit of honor by which the 
honorable and gallant gentleman was so honorably an- 
imated, and that he accepted an honorable explanation, 
offered in a way that did him honor ; but, he trusted 
that the Vestry would consider that' his (Mr. Tiddy- 
pot’s) honor had imperatively demanded of him that 
painful course which he had felt it due to his honor to 
adopt. The Captain and Mr. Tiddypot then touched 
their hats to one another across the Vestry, a grea 4 


OUR VESTRY. 


310 

\ 

many times, and it is thought that these proceedings 
(reported to the extent of several columns in next Sun- 
day’s paper) will bring them in as churchwardens next 
year. 

All this was strictly after the pattern of the real orig- 
inal. and so are the whole of our Vestry’s proceedings. 
In all their debates, they are laudably imitative of the 
windy and wordy slang of the real original, and of noth- 
ing that is better in it. They have headstrong party 
animosities, without any reference to the merits of ques- 
tions ; they tack a surprising amount of debate to a very 
little business ; they set more store by forms than they 
do by substances : — all very like the real original ! It 
has been doubted in our borough, whether our Vestry 
is of any utility ; but our own conclusion is, that it is 
of the use to the Borough that a diminishing mirror is 
to a Painter, as enabling it to perceive in a small focus 
of absurdity all the surface defects of the real original. 


OUR BORE. 


♦ 

It is unnecessary to say that we keep a bore. Every 
body does. But, the bore whom we have the pleasure 
and honor of enumerating among our particular friends, 
is such a generic bore, and has so many traits (as it ap- 
pears to us) in common with the great bore family, that 
we are tempted to make him the subject of the present 
notes. May he be generally accepted ! 

Our bore is admitted on all hands to be a good-hearted 
man. He may put fifty people out of temper, but he 
keeps his own. He preserves a sickly solid smile upon 
his face, when other faces are ruffled by the perfection 
he has attained in his art, and has an equable voice 
which never travels out of one key or rises above one 
pitch. His manner is a manner of tranquil interest. 
None of his opinions are startling. Among his deepest- 
rooted convictions, it may be mentioned that he consid- 
ers the air of England damp, and holds that our lively 
neighbors — he always calls the French our lively neigh- 
bors — have the advantage of us in that particular. 
Nevertheless, he is unable to forget that John Bull is 
John Bull all the world over, and that England with all 
her faults is England still. 

Our bore has travelled. He could not possibly be 
a complete bore without having travelled. He rarefy 


312 


OUR BORE. 


speaks of his travels without introducing, sometimes on 
his own plan of construction, morsels of the language of 
the country : — which he always translates. You can- 
not name to him any little remote town in France, Italy, 
Germany, or Switzerland but he knows it well ; stayed 
there a fortnight under peculiar circumstances. And 
talking of that little place, perhaps you know a statue 
over an old fountain, up a little court, which is the 
second — no, the third — stay — yes, the third turning 
on the right, after you come out of the Post house, going 
up the hill towards the market ? You don’t know that 
statue ? Nor that fountain ? You surprise him ! They 
are not usually seen by travellers (most extraordinary, 
he has never yet met with a single traveller who knew 
them, except one German, the most intelligent man he 
ever met in his life !) but he thought that you would 
have been the man to find them out. And then he 
describes them, in a circumstantial lecture half an hour 
long, generally delivered behind a door which is con- 
stantly being opened from the other side ; and implores 
you, if you ever revisit that place, now do go and look 
at that statue and fountain ! 

Our bore, in a similar manner, being in Italy, made a 
discovery of a dreadful picture, which has been the terror 
of a large portion of the civilized world ever since. We 
have seen the liveliest men paralyzed by it, across a 
broad dining-table. He was lounging among the moun- 
tains, sir, basking in the mellow influences of the cli- 
mate, when he came to una piccolo, chiesa — a little 
church — or perhaps it would be more correct to say 
una piccolissima cappella — the smallest chapel you 
can possibly imagine — and walked in. There was 
nobody inside but a cieco — a blind man — saying his 


OUR BORE. 


31c 


prayers, ancl a vecchio padre — old friar — rattling a 
money box. But, above the head of that friar, and 
immediately to the right of the altar as you enter — to 
the right of the altar ? No. To the left of the altar as 
you enter — or say near the centre — there hung a 
painting (subject, Virgin and Child) so divine in its 
expression, so pure and yet so warm and rich in its tone, 
so fresh in its touch, at once so glowing in its color and 
so statuesque in its repose, that our bore cried out in an 
ecstasy, “ That’s the finest picture in Italy ! ” And so it 
is, sir. There is no doubt of it. It is astonishing that that 
picture is so little known. Even the painter is uncer- 
tain. He afterwards took Blumb, of the Boyal Academy 
(it is to be observed that our bore takes none but emi- 
nent people to see sights, and that none but eminent 
people take our bore), and you never saw a man so 
affected in your life as Blumb was. He cried like a 
child ! And then our bore begins his description in 
detail — for all this is introductory — and strangles his 
hearers with the folds of the purple drapery. 

By an equally fortunate conjunction of accidental cir- 
cumstances, it happened that when our bore was in 
Switzerland, he discovered a Valley, of that superb char- 
acter, that Chamouni is not to be mentioned in the same 
breath with it. This is how it was, sir. He was travel- 
ling on a mule — had been in the saddle some days — 
when, as he and the guide, Pierre Blanquo : whom you 
may know, perhaps ? — our bore is sorry you don’t, be- 
cause he is the only guide deserving of the name — as 
he .and Pierre were descending, towards evening, among 
those everlasting snows, to the little village of La Croix, 
5>ur bore observed a mountain track turning off sharply 
to the right. At first he was uncertain whether it was 


314 


OUR BORE. 


a track at all, and in fact, he said to Pierre, “ Oddest que 
dest done , mon ami ? — What is that, my friend ? ” u Oil , 
monsieur ? 99 said Pierre — u Where, sir ? ” u La ! — 
there ! ” said our bore. “ Monsieur , ce rCest rien de tout 
— sir, it’s nothing at all,” said Pierre. “ AUons ! — 
Make haste. 11 va neiger — it’s going to snow ! ” But, 
our bore was not to be done in that way, and he firmly 
replied, “ I wish to go in that direction — je veux y oiler . 
I am bent upon it — je suis determine . En avant ! — 
go ahead ! ” In consequence of which firmness on our 
bore’s part, they proceeded, sir, during two hours of 
evening, and three of moonlight (they waited in a cavern 
till the moon was up), along the slenderest track, over- 
hanging perpendicularly the most awful gulfs, until they 
arrived, by a winding descent, in a valley that possibly, 
and he may say probably, was never visited by any 
stranger before. What a valley ! Mountains piled on 
mountains, avalanches stemmed by pine forests ; water- 
falls, chalets, mountain-torrents, wooden bridges, every 
conceivable picture of Swiss scenery! The whole vil- 
lage turned out to receive our bore. The peasant girls 
kissed him, the men shook hands with him, one old lady 
of benevolent appearance wept upon his breast. He was 
conducted, in a primitive triumph, to the little inn : where 
he was taken ill next morning, and lay for six weeks, at- 
tended by the amiable hostess (the same benevolent old 
lady who had wept over night) and her charming daugh- 
ter, Fanchette. It is nothing to say that they were at- 
tentive to him ; they doted on him. They called him in 
their simple way, VAnge Anglais — the English Angel. 
When our bore left the valley, there was not a dry eye 
in the place ; some of the people attended him for miles. 
He begs and entreats of you as a personal favor, that if 


OUR BORE. 


31 b 

you ever go to Switzerland again (you have mentioned 
that your last visit was your twenty-third), you will go 
to that valley, and see Swiss scenery for the first time. 
And if you want really to know the pastoral people of 
Switzerland, and to understand them, mention, in that 
valley, our bore’s name ! 

Our bore has a crushing brother in the East, who, 
somehow or other, was admitted to smoke pipes with 
Mehemet Ali, and instantly became an authority on the 
whole range of Eastern matters, from Haroun Alraschid 
to the present Sultan. He is in the habit of expressing 
mysterious opinions on this wide range of subjects, but 
on questions of foreign policy more particularly, to our 
bore, in letters ; and our bore is continually sending bits 
of these letters to the newspapers (which they never 
insert), and carrying other bits about in his pocket-book 
It is even whispered that he has been seen at the For- 
eign Office, receiving great consideration from the mes- 
sengers, and having his card promptly borne into the 
sanctuary of the temple. The havoc committed in 
society by this Eastern brother is beyond belief. Our 
bore is always ready with him. We have known our 
bore to fall upon an intelligent young sojourner in the 
wilderness, in the first sentence of a narrative, and beat 
all confidence out of him with one blow of his brother 
He became omniscient, as to foreign policy, in the smok- 
ing of those pipes with Mehemet Ali. The balance of 
power in Europe, the machinations of the Jesuits, the 
gentle and humanizing influence of Austria, the position 
and prospects of that hero of the noble soul who is wor- 
shipped by happy France, are all easy reading to our 
bore’s brother. And our bore is so provokingly self- 
ianying about him! “ I don’t pretend to more than a 


316 


OUR BORE. 


very general knowledge of these subjects myself,” says 
he, after enervating the intellects of several strong men, 
“ but these are my brother’s opinions, and I believe he is 
known to be well-informed.” 

The commonest incidents and places would appear to 
have been made special, expressly for our bore. Ask 
him whether he ever chanced to walk, between seven 
and eight in the morning, down St. James’s Street, Lon- 
don, and he will tell you, never in his life but once. 
But, it’s curious that that once was in eighteen thirty ; 
and that as our bore was walking down the street you 
have just mentioned, at the hour you have just men- 
tioned — half past seven — or twenty minutes to eight. 
No ! Let him be correct ! — exactly a quarter before 
eight by the Palace clock — he met a fresh-colored, 
gray-haired, good-humored looking gentleman, with a 
brown umbrella, who, as he passed him, touched his hat 
and said, “ Fine morning, sir, fine morning ! ” — William 
the Fourth ! 

Ask our bore whether he has seen Mr. Barry’s new 
Houses of Parliament, and he will reply that he has not 
yet inspected them minutely, but, that you remind him 
that it was his singular fortune to be the last man to 
see the old Houses of Parliament before the fire broke 
out. It happened in this way. Poor John Spine, the 
celebrated novelist, had taken him over to South Lam- 
beth to read to him the last few chapters of what was 
certainly his best book — as our bore told him at the 
time, adding, “ Now, my dear John, touch it, and you’ll 
spoil it ! ” — and our bore was going back to the club by 
way of Milbank and Parliament Street, when he stopped 
to think of Canning, and look at the Houses of Parlia- 
ment. Now, you know far more of the philosophy of 


\ 


317 


OUR BORE. 

Mind than our bore does, and are much better able ic 
explain to him than he is to explain to you why or 
wherefore, at that particular time, the thought of tire 
should come into his head. But, it did. It did. lie 
thought, What a national calamity if an edifice con- 
nected with so many associations should be consumed by 
fire ! At that time there was not a single soul in the 
street but himself. All was quiet, dark, and solitary. 
After contemplating the building for a minute — or, say 
a minute and a half, not more — our bore proceeded on 
his way, mechanically repeating, What a national calam- 
ity if such an edifice, connected with such associations, 

should be destroyed by A man coming towards him 

in a violent state of agitation completed the sentence, 
with the exclamation, Fire ! Our bore looked round, 
and the whole structure was in a blaze. 

In harmony and union with these experiences, our 
bore never went anywhere in a steamboat but he made 
either the best or the worst voyage ever known on that 
station. Either he overheard the captain say to himself, 
with his hands clasped, “We are all lost ! ” or the cap- 
tain openly declared to him that he had never made such 
a run before, and never should be able to do it again. 
Our bore was in that express train on that railway, when 
they made (unknown to the passengers) the experiment 
o r going at the rate of a hundred miles an hour. Our 
bore remarked on that occasion to the other people in 
the carriage, “ This is too fast, but sit still ! ” He was 
at the Norwich musical festival when the extraordinary 
echo for which science has been wholly unable to account, 
was heard for the first and last time. He and the bishop 
heard it at the same moment, and caught each other’s 
eye. He was present at that illumination of St. Peter’s, 


318 


OUR BORE. 


\ 

of which the Pope is known to have remarked, as he 
looked at it out of his window in the Vatican, “ C Cielo ! 
Questa cosa non sara fatta , mat ancora , come questa — 
O Heaven ! this thing will never be done again, like 
this ! ” He has seen every lion he ever saw, under 
some remarkably propitious circumstances. He knows 
there is no fancy in it, because in every case the show- 
man mentioned the fact at the time, and congratulated 
him upon it. 

At one period of his life, our bore had an illness. It 
was an illness of a dangerous character for society at 
large. Innocently remark that you are very well, or 
that somebody else is very well ; and our bore, with a 
preface that one never knows what a blessing health is 
until one has lost it, is reminded of that illness, and 
drags you through the whole of its symptoms, progress, 
and treatment. Innocently remark that you are not 
well, or that somebody else is not well, and the same 
inevitable result ensues. You will learn how our bore 
felt a tightness about here, sir, for which he couldn’t 
account, accompanied with a constant sensation as if he 
were being stabbed — or, rather, jobbed — that expresses 
it more correctly — jobbed — with a blunt knife. Well, 
sir ! This went on, until sparks began to flit before his 
eyes, water-wheels to turn round in his head, and ham- 
mers to beat incessantly thump, thump, thump, all down 
his back — along the whole of the spinal vertebras. Our 
bore, when his sensations had come to this, thought it a 
duty he owed to himself to take advice, and he said, 
Now, whom shall I consult ? He naturally thought of 
Callow, at that time one of the most eminent physicians 
in London, and he went to CalloAV. Callow said “ Liv- 
er ! ” and prescribed rhubarb and calomel, low diet, and 


OUR BORE. 


319 


moderate exercise. Our bore went on with this treat- 
ment, getting worse every day, until he lost confidence 
in Callow, and went to Moon, whom half the town was 
then mad about. Moon was interested in the case ; to 
do him justice he was very much interested in the case ; 
and he said “ Kidneys ! ” He altered the whole treat- 
ment, sir — gave strong acids, cupped, and blistered. 
This went on, our bore still getting worse every day, 
until he openly told Moon it would be a satisfaction to 
him if he would have a consultation with Clatter. The 
moment Clatter saw our bore, he said, “Accumulation 
of fat about the heart ! ” Snugglewood, who was called 
in with him, differed, and said “ Brain ! ” But, what 
they all agreed upon was, to lay our bore upon his back, 
to shave his head, to leech him, to administer enormous 
quantities of medicine, and to keep him low ; so that he 
was reduced to a mere shadow, you wouldn’t have known 
him, and nobody considered it possible that he could ever 
recover. This was his condition, sir, when he heard of Jil- 
kins — at that period in a very small practice, and living 
in the upper part of a house in Great Portland Street ; 
but still, you understand, with a rising reputation among 
the few people to whom he was known. Being in that 
condition in which a drowning man catches at a straw, 
our bore sent for Jilkins. Jilkins came. Our bore liked 
his eye, and said, “ Mr. Jilkins, I have a presentiment 
th at you will do me good.” Jilkins’s reply was charac- 
teristic of the man. It was, “ Sir, I mean to do you 
good.” This confirmed our bore’s opinion of his eye, 
and they went into the case together — went completely 
into it. Jilkins then got up, walked across the room, 
.^ame back, and sat down. His words were these. “You 
have been humbugged. This is a case of indigestion 


320 


OUR BORE. 


occasioned by deficiency of power in the Stomach. Take a 
mutton chop in half an hour, with a glass of the finest 
old sherry that can be got for money. Take two mutton 
chops to-morrow, and two glasses of the finest old sherry. 
Next day, I’ll come again.” In a week our bore was on 
his legs, and Jilkins’s success dates from that period ! 

Our bore is great in secret information. He happens 
to know many things that nobody else knows. He can 
generally tell you where the split is in the Ministry ; he 
knows a deal about the Queen ; and has little anecdotes 
to relate of the royal nursery. He gives you the judge’s 
private opinion of Sludge the murderer, and his thoughts 
when he tried him. He happens to know what such a 
man got by such a transaction, and it was fifteen thou- 
sand five hundred pounds, and his income is twelve thou- 
sand a year. Our bore is also great in mystery. He be- 
lieves, with an exasperating appearance of profound 
meaning, that you saw Parkins last Sunday ? — Yes, 
you did. — Did he say anything particular ? — No, noth- 
ing particular. — Our bore is surprised at that. — Why ? 

— Nothing. Only he understood that Parkins had come 
to tell you something. — What about ? — Well ! our bore 
is not at liberty to mention what about. But, he believes 
you will hear that from Parkins himself, soon, and he 
hopes it may not surprise you as it did him. Perhaps, 
however, you never heard about Parkins’s wife’s sister ? 

— No. — Ah ! says our bore, that explains it ! 

Our bore is also great m argument. He infinitely 
enjoys a long humdrum, drowsy interchange of words of 
dispute about nothing. He considers that it strengthens 
the mind, consequently, he “ don’t see that,” very often. 
Or, he would be glad to know what you mean by that. 
Or, he doubts that. Or, he has always understood ex- 


OUR BORE. 


321 


actly the reverse of that. Or, he can't admit that. Or, 
he begs to deny that. Or, surely you don’t mean that. 
And so on. He once advised us ; offered us a piece of 
advice, after the fact, totally impracticable and wholly 
impossible of acceptance, because it supposed the fact, 
then eternally disposed of, to be yet in abeyance. It was 
a dozen years ago, and to this hour our bore benevolently 
wishes, in a mild voice, on certain regular occasions, that 
we had thought better of his opinion. 

The instinct with which our bore finds out another 
bore, and closes with him, is amazing. We have seen 
him pick his man out of fifty men, in a couple of minutes. 
They love to go (which they do naturally) into a slow 
argument on a previously exhausted subject, and to con- 
tradict each other, and to wear the hearers out, without 
impairing their own perennial freshness as bores. It im- 
proves the good understanding between them, and they 
get together afterwards, and bore each other amicably. 
Whenever we see our bore behind a door with another 
bore, we know that when he comes forth, he will praise 
the other bore as one of the most intelligent men he 
ever met. And this bringing us to the close of what we 
had to say about our bore, we are anxious to have it un- 
derstood that he never bestowed this praise on us. 


VOL, II 


21 


A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. 


♦ 

It was profoundly observed by a witty member of the 
Court of Common Council, in Council assembled in the 
City of London, in the year of our Lord one thousand 
eight hundred and fifty, that the French are a frog-eating 
people, who wear wooden shoes. 

We are credibly informed, in reference to the nation 
whom this choice spirit so happily disposed of, that the 
caricatures and stage representations which were current 
in England some half a century ago, exactly depict their 
present, condition. For example, we understand that 
every Frenchman, without exception, wears a pigtail and 
curl-papers. That he is extremely sallow, thin, long- 
faced, and lantern-jawed. That the calves of his legs 
are invariably undeveloped ; that his legs fail at the 
knees, and that his shoulders are always higher than his 
ears. We are likewise assured that he rarely tastes any 
food but soup maigre, and an onion ; that he always says, 
“ By Gar ! Aha ! Vat you tell me, Sare ? ” at the end 
of every sentence he utters ; and that the true generic 
name of his race is the Mounseers, or the Parly-voos. 
If he be not a dancing-master, or a barber, he must be a 
cook ; since no other trades but those three are congenial 
to the tastes of the people, or permitted by the Institu- 
tions of the country. He is a slave, of course. The 


A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. 


323 


ladies of France (who are also slaves) invariably have 
their heads tied up in Belcher handkerchiefs, wear long 
ear-rings, carry tambourines, and beguile the weariness 
of their yoke by singing in head voices through their 
noses — principally to barrel-organs. 

It may be generally summed up, of this inferior peo- 
ple, that they have no idea of anything. 

Of a great Institution like Smithfield, they are unable 
to form the least conception. A Beast Market in the 
heart of Paris would be regarded an impossible nuisance. 
Nor have they any notion of slaughter-houses in the 
midst of a city. One of these benighted frog-eaters 
would scarcely understand your meaning, if you told 
him of the existence of such a British bulwark. 

% 

It is agreeable, and perhaps pardonable, to indulge in 
a little self-complacency when our right to it is thoroughly 
established. At the present time, to be rendered memo- 
rable by a final attack on that good old market which is 
the (rotten) apple of the Corporation’s eye, let us com- 
pare ourselves, to our national delight and pride, as to 
these two subjects of slaughter-house and beast-market, 
with the outlandish foreigner. 

The blessings of Smithfield are too well understood to 
need recapitulation ; all who run (away from mad bulls 
and pursuing oxen) may read. Any market-day they 
may be beheld in glorious action. Possibly the merits 
of our slaughter-houses are not yet quite so generally 
appreciated. 

Slaughter-houses, in the large towns of England, are 
always (with the exception of one or two enterprising 
towns) most numerous in the most densely crowded 
places, '" here there is the least circulation of air. They 
are ofte - under-ground, in cellars ; they are sometimes 


324 


A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. 


v 


in close back yards ; sometimes (as in Spitalfields) in the 
very shops where the meat is sold. Occasionally, under 
good private management, they are ventilated and clean. 
For the most part, they are unventilated and dirty; and, 
to the reeking walls, putrid fat and other offensive animal 
matter clings with a tenacious hold. The busiest slaugh- 
ter-houses in London are in the neighborhood of Smith- 
field, in Newgate Market, in Whitechapel, in Newport 
Market, in Leadenhall Market, in Clare Market. All 
these places are surrounded by houses of a poor descrip- 
tion, swarming with inhabitants. Some of them are 
close to the worst burial-grounds in London. When the 
slaughter-house is below the ground, it is a common prac- 
tice to throw the sheep down areas, neck and crop - - 
which is exciting, but not at all cruel. When it is on 
the level surface, it is often extremely difficult of ap- 
proach. Then, the beasts have to be worried, and 
goaded, and pronged, and tail-twisted, for a long time 
before they can be got in — which is entirely owing to 
their natural obstinacy. When it is not difficult of ap- 
proach, but is in a foul condition, what they see and scent 
makes them still more reluctant to enter — which is their 
natural obstinacy again. When they do get in at last, 
after no trouble and suffering to speak of (for, there is 
nothing in the previous journey into the heart of London, 
the night’s endurance in Smithfield, the struggle out again, 
among the crowded multitude, the coaches, carts, wagons, 
omnibuses, gigs, chaises, phaetons, cabs, trucks, dogs, 
boys, whoopings, roarings, and ten thousand other dis- 
tractions), they are represented to be in a most unfit 
state to be killed, according to microscopic examinations 
made of their fevered blood by one of the most dis- 
tinguished physiologists in the world, Professor Owen 


A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. 


— but that’s humbug When they are killed, at last, 
their reeking carcasses are hung in impure air, to become, 
as the same Professor will explain to you, less nutritious 
and more unwholesome — but he is only an uncommon 
counsellor, so don’t mind him. In half a quarter of a 
mile’s length of Whitechapel, at one time, there shall be 
six hundred newly slaughtered oxen hanging up, and 
seven hundred sheep — but, the more the merrier — 
proof of prosperity. Hard by Snow Hill and Warwick 
Lane, you shall see the little children, inured to sights 
of brutality from their birth, trotting along the alleys, 
mingled with troops of horribly busy pigs, up to their 
ankles in blood — but it makes the young rascals hardy. 
Into the imperfect sewers of this overgrown city, you 
shall have the immense mass of corruption, engendered 
by these practices, lazily thrown out of sight, to rise, in 
poisonous gases, into your house at night, when your 
sleeping children will most readily absorb them, and to 
find its languid way, at last, into the river that you drink 

— but, the French, are a frog-eating people who wear 
wooden shoes, and it’s O the roast beef of England, my 
boy, the jolly old English roast beef. 

It is quite a mistake — a new-fangled notion altogether 

— to suppose that there is any natural antagonism be- 
tween putrefaction and health. They know better than 
that, in the Common Council. You may talk about Na- 
ture, in her wisdom, always warning man through l:is 
sense of smell, when he draws near to something danger- 
ous ; but, that won’t go down in the city. Nature very 
often don’t mean anything. Mrs. Quickly says that 
prunes are ill for a green wound ; but whosoever says 
that putrid animal substances are ill for a green wound, 
or for robust vigor, or for anything or for anybody, is a 


326 


A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. 


\ 


humanity-monger and a humbug. Britons never, never, 
never, &c., therefore. And prosperity to cattle-driving, 
cattle-slaughtering, bone-crushing, blood-boiling, trotter- 
scraping, tripe-dressing, paunch-cleaning, gut-spinning, 
hide-preparing, tallow-melting, and other salubrious pro- 
ceedings, in the midst of hospitals, churchyards, work- 
houses, schools, infirmaries, refuges, dwellings, provision- 
shops, nurseries, sick-beds, every stage and baiting-place 
in the journey from birth to death ! 

These uncommon counsellors, your Professor Owens 
and fellows, will contend that to tolerate these things in a 
civilized city, is to reduce it to a worse condition than 
Bruce found to prevail in Abyssinia. For, there (say 
they) the jackals and wild dogs came at night to devour 
the offal ; whereas here there are no such natural scaven- 
gers, and quite as savage customs. Further, they will 
demonstrate that nothing in Nature is intended to be 
wasted, and that besides the waste which such abuses oc- 
casion in the articles of health and life — main sources of 
the riches of any community — they lead to a prodigious 
waste of changing matters, which might, with proper 
preparation, and under scientific direction, be safely ap- 
plied to the increase of the fertility of the land. Thus 
(they argue) does Nature ever avenge infractions of her 
beneficent laws, and so surely as Man is determined to 
warp any of her blessings into curses, shall they become 
curses, and shall he suffer heavily. But, this is cant. Just 
as it is cant of the worst description to say to the London 
Corporation , " How can you exhibit to the people so plain 
a spectacle of dishonest equivocation, as to claim the right 
of holding a market in the midst of the great city, for 
one of your vested privileges, when you know that when 
your last market-holding charter was granted to you by 


A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. 


327 


King Charles the First, Smithfield stood in the Suburbs 
of London, and is in that very charter so described in 
those five words ? ” — which is certainly true, but has 
nothing to do with the question. 

Now to the comparison, in these particulars of civiliza- 
tion, between the capital of England and the capital of 
that frog-eating and wooden-slioe wearing country, which . 
the illustrious Common Councilman so sarcastically set- 
tled. 

In Paris, there is no Cattle Market. Cows and calves 
are sold within the city, but, the Cattle Markets are at 
Poissy, about thirteen miles off, on a line of railway ; 
and at Sceaux, about five miles off. The Poissy market 
is held every Thursday ; the Sceaux market, every Mon- 
day. Li Paris, there are no slaughter-houses, in our ac- 
ceptation of the term. There are five public Abattoirs 
— within the walls, though in the suburbs — and in 
these all the slaughtering for the city must be performed. 
They are managed by a Syndicat or Guild of Butchers, 
who confer with the Minister of the Interior on all mat- 
ters affecting the trade, and who are consulted when any 
new regulations are contemplated for its government. 
They are, likewise, under the vigilant superintendence 
of the police. Every butcher must be licensed : which 
proves him at once to be a slave, for we don’t license 
butchers in England — we only license apothecaries, at- 
torneys, postmasters, publicans, hawkers, retailers of to- 
bacco, snuff, pepper, and vinegar — and one or two other 
little trades not worth mentioning. Every arrangement 
in connection with the slaughtering and sale of meat, is 
matter of strict police regulation. (Slavery again, though 
we certainly have a general sort of a Police Act here.) 

But, in order that the reader may understand what a 


828 


A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. 


monument of folly these frog-eaters have raised in their 
abattoirs and cattle-markets, and may compare it with 
what common counselling has done for us all these years, 
and would still do but for the innovating spirit of the 
times, here follows a short account of a recent visit to 
these places : 

It was as sharp a February morning as you would desire 
to feel at your fingers’ ends when I turned out — tum- 
bling over a chiffonier with his little basket and rake, who 
was picking up the bits of colored paper that had been 
swept out, over-night, from a Bon-Bon shop — to take 
the Butchers’ Train to Poissy. A cold dim light just 
touched the high roofs of the Tuileries which had seen 
such changes, such distracted crowds, such riot and blood- 
shed ; and they looked as calm, and as old, all covered 
with white frost, as the very Pyramids. There was not 
light enough, yet, to strike upon the towers of Notre 
Dame across the water ; but I thought of the dark pave- 
ment of the old Cathedral as just beginning to be streak- 
ed with gray ; and of the lamps in the “ House of God,” 
the Hospital close to it, burning low and being quenched ; 
and of the keeper of the Morgue going about with a fad- 
ing lantern, busy in the arrangement of his terrible wax- 
work for another sunny day. 

The sun was up, and sliming merrily when the butch- 
ers and I announcing our departure with an engine-shriek 
to sleepy Paris, rattled away for the Cattle Market. 
Across the country, over the Seine, among a forest of 
scrubby trees — the hoar-frost lying cold in shady places, 
and glittering in the light — and here we are at Poissy ! 
Out leap the butchers who have been chattering all the 
way like madmen, and off they straggle for the Cattle 


A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. 


329 


Market (still chattering, of course, incessantly), in hats 
and caps of all shapes, in coats and blouses, in calf-skins, 
cow-skins, horse-skins, furs, shaggy mantles, hairy coats, 
sacking, baize, oil-skin, anything you please that will keep 
a man and a butcher warm, upon a frosty morning. 

Many a French town have I seen, between this spo 
of ground and Strasbourg or Marseilles, that might si 
for your picture, little Poissy ! Barring the details of 
your old church, I know you well, albeit we make ac- 
quaintance, now, for the first time. I know your narrow 
straggling, winding streets, with a kennel in the midst, 
and lamps slung across. I know your picturesque street- 
corners, winding up-hill Heaven knows why or where ! 
I know your tradesmen’s inscriptions, in letters not quite 
fat enough; your barber’s brazen basins dangling over 
little shops ; your Cafes and Estaminets, with cloudy 
bottles of stale syrup in the windows, and pictures of 
crossed billiard-cues outside. I know this identical gray 
horse with his tail rolled up in a knot like the u back 
hair ” of an untidy woman, who won’t be shod, and who 
makes himself heraldic by clattering across the street on 
his hind legs, while twenty voices shriek and growl at 
him as a Brigand, aiy accursed Robber, and an everlast- 
ingly-doomed Pig. I know your sparkling town-fountain 
too, my Poissy, and am glad to see it near a cattle-market, 
gushing so freshly, under the auspices of a gallant little 
sublimated Frenchman wrought in metal, perched upon 
the top. Through all the land of France I know this 
unswept room at The Glory, with its peculiar smell of 
beans and coffee, where the butchers crowd about the 
stove, drinking the thinnest of wine from the smallest of 
tumblers ; where the thickest of coffee-cups mingle with 
the longest of loaves, and the weakest of lump sugar ; 


330 


A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. 


where Madame at the counter easily acknowledges the 
homage of all entering and departing butchers ; where 
the billiard-table is covered up in the midst like a great; 
bird-cage — but the bird may sing by and by. 

A bell ! The Calf Market ! Polite departure of 
butchers. Hasty payment and departure on the part of 
amateur Visitor. Madame reproaches Ma’amselle for 
too fine a susceptibility in reference to the devotion of a 
Butcher in a bear-skin. Monsieur, the landlord of The 
Glory, counts a double handful of sous, without an unob- 
literated inscription, or an undamaged crowned head, 
among them. 

There is little noise without, abundant space, and no 
confusion. The open area devoted to the market is 
divided into three portions : the Calf Market, the Cattle 
Market, the Sheep Market. Calves at eight, cattle at 
ten, sheep at mid-day. All is very clean. 

The Calf Market is a raised platform of stone, some 
three or four feet high, open on all sides, with a lofty 
over-spreading roof, supported on stone columns, which 
give it the appearance of a sort of vineyard from North- 
ern Italy. Here, on the raised pavement, lie innumer- 
able calves, all bound hind-legs and fore-legs together, 
and all trembling violently — perhaps with cold, perhaps 
with fear, perhaps with pain ; for, this mode of tying, 
which seems to be an absolute superstition with the peas- 
antry, can hardly fail to cause great suffering. Here, 
they lie, patiently in rows, among the straw, with their 
stolid faces and inexpressive eyes, superintended by men 
and women, boys and girls ; here they are inspected by 
our friends, the butchers, bargained for, and bought. 
Plenty of time ; plenty of room ; plenty of good humor. 
“ Monsieur Francois in the bear-skin, how do you do, my 


A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. 


331 


friend ? You come from Paris by the train ? The fresh 
air does you good. If you are in want of three or four 
fine calves this market-morning, my angel, I Madame 
Doche, shall be happy to deal with you. Behold these 
calves, Monsieur Francois ! Great Heaven, you are 
doubtful ! Well, sir, walk round and look about you. If 
you find better for the money, buy them. If not, come 
to me ! ” Monsieur Francois goes his way leisurely, and 
keeps a wary eye upon the stock. No other butcher 
jostles Monsieur Francois ; Monsieur Francois jostles no 
other butcher. Nobody is flustered and aggravated. 
Nobody is savage. In the midst of the country blue 
frocks and red handkerchiefs, and the butchers’ coats, 
shaggy, furry, and hairy : of calf-skin, cow-skin, horse- 
skin, and bear-skin : towers a cocked hat and a blue cloak. 
Slavery ! For our Police wear great-coats and glazed 
hats. 

But now the bartering is over, and the calves are sold. 
“ Ho ! Gregorie, Antoine, Jean, Louis ! Bring up the 
carts, my children ! Quick, brave infants ! Hola ! 
Hi ! ” 

The carts, well littered with straw, are backed up to 
the edge of the raised pavement, and various hot infants 
carry calves upon their heads, and dexterously pitch 
them in, while other hot infants, standing in the carts, 
arrange the calves, and pack them carefully in straw. 
Here is a promising young calf, not sold, whom Madame 
Doche unbinds. Pardon me, Madame Doche, but I fear 
this mode of tying the four legs of a quadruped together, 
though strictly a la mode, is not quite right. You ob- 
serve, Madame Doche, that the cord leaves deep inden- 
tations in the skin, and that the animal is so cramped at 
first as not to know, or even remotely suspect, that he is 


332 


A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. 


unbound, until you are so obliging as to kick him, in your 
delicate little way, and pull bis tail like a bell-rope. 
Then, he staggers to his knees, not being able to stand, 
and stumbles about like a drunken calf, or the horse at 
Franconi’s, whom you may have seen, Madame Doche, 
who is supposed to have been mortally wounded in battle* 
But, what is this rubbing against me, as I apostrophize 
Madame Doche ? It is another heated infant with a 
calf upon his head. “ Pardon, Monsieur, but will you 
have the politeness to allow me to pass ? ” “ Ah, Sir, 

willingly. I am vexed to obstruct the way.” On he 
staggers, calf and all, and makes no allusion whatever 
either to my eyes or limbs. 

Now, the carts are all full. More straw, my Antoine, 
to shake over these top rows ; then, off we will clatter, 
rumble, jolt, and rattle, a long row of us, out of the first 
town-gate, and out at the second town-gate, and past the 
empty sentry-box, and the little thin square bandbox of a 
guard-house, where nobody seems to live ; and away for 
Paris, by the paved road, lying, a straight straight line, 
in the long long avenue of trees. We can neither 
chose our road, nor our pace, for that is all prescribed to 
us. The public convenience demands that our carts 
should get to Paris by such a route, and no other (Napo- 
leon had leisure to find that out, while he had a little 
war with the world upon his hands), and woe betide us 
if we infringe orders. 

Droves of oxen stand in the Cattle Market, tied to 
iron bars fixed into posts of granite. Other droves ad- 
vance slowly down the long avenue, past the second 
town-gate, and the first town-gate, and the sentry-box, 
and the bandbox, thawing the morning with their smoky 
breath as they come along. Plenty of room ; plenty of 


A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. 333 

time. Neither man nor beast is driven out of his wits 
by coaches, carts, wagons, omnibuses, gigs, chaises, 
phaetons, cabs, trucks, boys, whoopings, roarings, and 
multitudes. No tail-twisting is necessary — no iron 
pronging is necessary. There are no iron prongs here. 
The market for cattle is held as quietly as the market 
for calves. In due time, off the cattle go to Paris ; the 
drovers can no more choose their road, nor their time, 
nor the numbers they shall drive, than they can choose 
their hour for dying in the course of nature. 

Sheep next. The Sheep-pens are up here, past the 
Branch Bank of Paris established for the convenience 
of the butchers, and behind the two pretty fountains they 
are making in the Market. My name is Bull : yet I 
think I should like to see as good twin fountains — not 
to say in Smithfield, but in England anywhere. Plenty 
of room; plenty of time. And here are sheep-dogs, 
sensible as ever, but with a certain French air about 
them — not without a suspicion of dominoes — with a 
kind of flavor of moustache and beard — demonstrative 
dogs, shaggy and loose where an English dog would be 
tight and close — not so troubled with business calcula- 
tions as our English drovers’ dogs, who have always got 
their sheep upon their minds, and think about their work, 
even resting, as you may see by their faces ; but, dash- 
ing, showy, rather unreliable dogs : who might worry me 
instead of their legitimate charges if they saw occasion 
- — and might see it somewhat suddenly. The market for 
sheep passes off like the other two ; and away they go, 
by their allotted road to Paris. My way being the Rail- 
way, I make the best of it at twenty miles an hour ; 
whirling through the now high-lighted landscape ; think- 
vig that the inexperienced green buds will be wishing 


334 


A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. 


before long, they had not been tempted to come out so 
soon ; and wondering who lives in this or that chateau, 
all window and lattice, and what the family may have 
for breakfast this sharp morning. 

After the Market comes the Abattoir. What abattoir 
shall I visit first? Montmartre is the largest. So, I 
will go there. 

The abattoirs are all within the walls of Paris, with 
an eye to the receipt of the octroi duty ; but, they stand 
in open places in the suburbs, removed from the press 
and bustle of the city. They are managed by the Syn- 
dicat or Guild of Butchers, under the inspection of the 
Police. Certain smaller items of the revenue derived 
from them are in part retained by the Guild for the pay- 
ment of their expenses, and in part devoted by it to 
charitable purposes in connection with the trade. They 
cost six hundred and eighty thousand pounds ; and they 
return to the city of Paris an interest on that outlay, 
amounting to nearly six and a half per cent. 

Here, in a sufficiently dismantled space is the Abattoir 
of Montmartre, covering nearly nine acres of ground, 
surrounded by a high wall, and looking from the outside 
like a cavalry barrack. At the iron gates is a small 
functionary in a large cocked hat. “ Monsieur desires to 
see the abattoir ? Most certainly.” State being incon- 
venient in private transactions, and Monsieur being 
already aware of the cocked hat, the functionary puts 
it into a little official bureau which it almost fills, and 
accompanies me in the modest attire — as to his head — 
of ordinary life. 

Many of the animals from Poissy have come here. 
On the arrival of each drove, it was turned into yonder 
ample space, where each butcher who had bought, select- 


A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. 


335 


ed liis own purchases. Some, we see now, in these long 
perspectives of stalls with a high overhanging roof of 
wood and open tiles rising above the walls. While they 
rest here, before being slaughtered, they are required to 
be fed and watered, and the stalls must be kept clean. 
A stated amount of fodder must always be ready in the 
loft above ; and the supervision is of the strictest kind. 
The same regulations apply to sheep and calves ; for 
which, portions of these perspectives are strongly railed 
off. All the buildings are of the strongest and most 
solid description. 

After traversing these lairs, through which, besides 
the upper provision for ventilation just mentioned, there 
may be a thorough current of air from opposite windows 
In the side walls, and from doors at either end, we tra- 
verse the broad, paved court-yard, until we come to the 
slaughter-houses. They are all exactly alike, and adjoin 
each other, to the number of eight or nine together, in 
blocks of solid building. Let us walk into the first. 

It is firmly built and paved with stone. It is well 
lighted, thoroughly aired, and lavishly provided with 
fresh water. It has two doors opposite each other ; the 
first, the door by which I entered from the main yard ; 
the second, which is opposite, opening on another smaller 
yard, where the sheep and calves are killed on benches. 
The pavement of that yard, I see, slopes downward to a 
gutter, for its being more easily cleansed. The slaughter- 
house is fifteen feet high, sixteen feet and a half wide, 
and thirty-three feet long. It is fitted with a powerful 
windlass, by which one man at the handle can bring the 
head of an ox down to the ground to receive the blow 
from the pole-axe that is to fell him — with the means 
of raising the carcass and keeping it suspended during 


336 


A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. 


the after-operation of dressing — and with hooks on 
which carcasses can hang, when completely prepared, 
without touching the walls. Upon the pavement of this 
first stone chamber, lies an ox scarcely dead. If I except 
the blood draining from him, into a little stone well in a 
corner of the pavement, the place is free from offence as 
the Place de la Concorde. It is infinitely purer and 
cleaner, I know, my friend the functionary, than the 
Cathedral of Notre Dame. Ha, ha ! Monsieur is pleas- 
ant, but, truly, there is reason, too, in what he says. 

I look into another of these slaughter-houses. “ Pray 
enter,” says a gentleman in bloody boots. “ This is a 
calf I have killed this morning. Having a little time 
upon my hands, I have cut and punctured this lace pat- 
tern in the coats of his stomach. It is pretty enough. 
I did it to divert myself.” — u It is beautiful, Monsieur, 
the slaughterer ! ” He tells me I have the gentility to 
say so. 

I look into rows of slaughter-houses. In many, retail 
dealers, who have come here for the purpose, are making 
bargains for meat. There is killing enough, certainly, 
to satiate an unused eye ; and there are steaming car- 
casses enough, to suggest the expediency of a fowl and 
salad for dinner ; but, everywhere, there is an orderly, 
clean, well-systematized routine of work in progress — 
horrible work at the best, if you please ; but, so much 
the greater reason why it should be made the best of. 
I don’t know (I think I have observed, my name is Bull) 
that a Parisian of the lowest order is particularly deli- 
cate, or that his nature is remarkable for an infinitesimal 
infusion of ferocity ; but, I do know, my potent, grave, 
and common counselling Signors, that he is forced, when 
at this work, to submit himself to a thoroughly good 


A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. 


.) 0 ** 
OO i 


system, and to make an Englishman very heartily 
ashamed of you. 

Here, within the walls of the same abattoir, in other 
roomy and commodious buildings, are a place for con- 
verting the fat into tallow and packing it for market — 
a place for cleansing and scalding calves’ heads and 
sheeps’ feet — a place for preparing tripe — stables and 
coach-houses for the butchers — innumerable conven- 
iences, aiding in the diminution of offensiveness to its 
lowest possible point, and the raising of cleanliness and 
supervision to their highest. Hence, all the meat that 
goes out of the gate is sent away in clean covered carts. 
And if every trade connected with the slaughtering of 
animals were obliged by law to be carried on in the same 
place, I doubt, my friend, now reinstated in the cocked 
hat (whose civility these two francs imperfectly acknowl- 
edge, but appear munificently to repay), whether there 
could be better regulations than those which are carried 
out at the Abattoir of Montmartre. Adieu, my friend, 
for I am away to the other side of Paris, to the Abattoir 
of Grenelle ! And there I find exactly the same thing 
on a smaller scale, with the addition of a magnificent 
Artesian well, and ' a different sort of conductor, in the 
person of a neat little woman with neat little eyes, and 
a neat little voice, who picks her neat little way among 
the bullocks in a very neat little pair of shoes and stock- 
ings, 

Such is the Monument of French Folly which a for- 
eigneering people have erected, in a national hatred and 
antipathy for common counselling wisdom. That wis- 
dom, assembled in the City of London, having distinctly 

refused, after a debate three days long, and by a major- 

vol. ii. 22 


J X 7 7 ?¥? 

338 A MONUMENT OF FRENCH FOLLY. / 3 »/ ; - // 

ity of nearly seven to one, to associate itself with any 
Metropolitan Cattle-Market unless it be held in the midst 
of the City, it follows that we shall lose the inestimable 
advantages of common counselling protection, and be 
thrown, for a market, on our own wretched resources. In 
all human probability we shall thus come, at last, to erect 
a monument of folly very like this French monument. If 
that be done, the consequences are obvious. The leather 
trade will be ruined, by the introduction of American 
timber, to be manufactured into shoes for the fallen Eng- 
lish ; the Lord Mayor will be required, by the popular 
voice, to live entirely on frogs ; and both these changes 
will (how, is not at present quite clear, but certainly 
somehow or other) fall on that unhappy landed interest 
which is always being killed, yet is always found to be 
alive — and kicking. 




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